Chiye Aoki
The overall goal of my laboratory is to understand the biological basis of individual differences in vulnerability to anorexia nervosa and responsiveness to treatments of anorexia nervosa
View latest advances in the Aoki Lab
Chiye Aoki
Our lab has a long-standing interest in ion channels and synaptic transmission,
dating back to the 1985 discovery that central synapses use a previously
unrecognized set of calcium channels, exemplified by the N-type channel, to drive
neurotransmission. Studies of the diversity of Ca2+ channels led to an interest in
long-term potentiation and then to studies addressing more general questions
about synaptic physiology. We have also been fascinated by how the properties of individual synapses contribute to the dynamics of neuronal networks. Neurons and circuitry that generate healthy activity like long-term potentiation and sharp wave ripples also give rise to inappropriate excitation-inhibition ratios in disparate
disorders. What determines the dynamics of firing in and the watershed between
these forms of activity? What role do diverse excitatory and inhibitory synapses
play in shaping the flow of information in CNS circuits? How might neural circuitry
containing such synapses become dysfunctional in disorders such as autism,
epilepsy, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease? We apply our expertise in
electrical, molecular, genetic and optical approaches to capitalize on genetic
discoveries of highly penetrant disorders that exemplify the more general disease.
By combining forces with systems neuroscientists and clinicians, our lab explores
the roles of interneuron-dominated circuitry and neuromodulatory state. We
provide a vigorous bridge between molecular/cellular and systems-level
approaches to vulnerable brain function.
View latest advances in the Tsien Lab
Richard Tsien, PhD
Our focus is “neuronal syntax”, i.e., the rules by which brain
circuits package, transfer and store information. The guiding
hypothesis is that a rich variety of brain oscillations provide the
needed syntactical rules. Oscillations are robust and quantifiable
phenotypes and various brain systems have unique
constellations of oscillations. Every psychiatric disease is
associated with some kind of rhythm problem.
We monitor large-scale neuronal firing patterns and the local
fields they generate in behaving rodents to relate the neuronal
assembly patterns to overt and covert behaviors. The main
target of our investigations is the hippocampus and we reach
out from this structure to its numerous cortical and subcortical
partners. All of our studies involve sleep, since sleep mirrors the
changes in neuronal networks brought about by experience.
To challenge our observations, we use perturbation methods in
both rodents and humans, such as non-invasive transcranial
electrical and radio frequency stimulation to interfere with brain
computation or improve performance in disease.
Gyorgy Buzsaki, MD, PhD
The overarching goal of my research program is to understand
synaptic and circuit mechanisms supporting experience-
dependent stability, and flexibility of long-term memory
representations. These are critical functions of the brain
enabling adaptive learnt behaviors. The brain areas we focus
on–the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex are crucial for
memory processing and are particularly vulnerable to dysfunction in many brain disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, schizophrenia and PTSD.
We use transgenic mouse models to examine cortico-hippocampal
circuit interactions using electrophysiology and two-photon imaging combined with genetic manipulations, behavior, and modeling. By recording from live human tissue resected from patients of epilepsy, we are parsing circuit mechanisms
underlying seizure pathophysiology. In the long term, our research aims to identify cellular changes manifesting in overlapping cognitive symptoms in these disease states and find potential therapeutic targets for early-stage intervention.
Richard Tsien, PhD
Our focus is “neuronal syntax”, i.e., the rules by which brain
circuits package, transfer and store information. The guiding
hypothesis is that a rich variety of brain oscillations provide the
needed syntactical rules. Oscillations are robust and quantifiable
phenotypes and various brain systems have unique
constellations of oscillations. Every psychiatric disease is
associated with some kind of rhythm problem.
We monitor large-scale neuronal firing patterns and the local
fields they generate in behaving rodents to relate the neuronal
assembly patterns to overt and covert behaviors. The main
target of our investigations is the hippocampus and we reach
out from this structure to its numerous cortical and subcortical
partners. All of our studies involve sleep, since sleep mirrors the
changes in neuronal networks brought about by experience.
To challenge our observations, we use perturbation methods in
both rodents and humans, such as non-invasive transcranial
electrical and radio frequency stimulation to interfere with brain
computation or improve performance in disease.
Joseph E. LeDoux, PhD
Research in our lab research focuses on characterizing the
learning, memory, and decision-making processes that support
goal-directed behavior across development, and how dynamic
changes in brain circuits give rise to these functions. We pursue
these questions using an array of methodological techniques
including computational modeling, neuroimaging,
psychophysiology, and ecological momentary assessment, in
conjunction with experimental paradigms that draw upon animal
learning and economic decision theories. An overarching goal of
our research is to better understand the mechanisms governing
psychiatric vulnerability and resilience across the lifespan.
View latest advances in the Hartley Lab
Katherine A. Hartley, PhD
Social behaviors such as mating, fighting, defense, predation, and
parenting, are innate, indispensable, and ubiquitous across the animal
kingdoms. Research in our laboratory centers on understanding the
neural circuits underlying these powerful behaviors in a genetically
tractable model system, mice. We are interested in investigating how
the sensory information is relayed, integrated, extracted, and diverged
to ultimately cause the behavioral output and how experience changes
this process. Various genetic engineering, tracing, functional manipulation, in vivo electrophysiological recording, and computational tools are combined to elucidate the neural circuits in detail.
Dayu Lin, PhD