Melanopsin-expressing, intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) represent a class of non-canonical, ganglion cell photoreceptors. These cells influence a variety of visual behaviors including contrast sensitivity, circadian photoentrainment, sleep, and even mood. These wide-ranging behavioral influences are attributed to the multiple subtypes (M1-6) that comprise the ipRGC population, with different...
The cerebellar cortical system is an extensively studied circuit which is critical for motor learning. While multiple monoamines, such as norepinephrine and serotonin, modulate cerebellar cortical output, the mechanistic details of dopaminergic signaling in the cerebellum remain poorly understood. Additionally, neuronal cell types residing within the cerebellum remain relatively under-characterized....
Research on how sleep contributes to memory has blossomed in recent years. These studies have generally focused on whether or not sleep impacts various types of memory independently. An open question is whether sleep interactively influences different memory types. My research focuses on two types of memory—specificity and generalization. Whereas...
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID) are two of the most highly prevalent neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), each affecting roughly 2% of the population. Despite the need for therapies, few exist due to a myriad of challenges, such as the complex underlying genetic etiology and historic inaccessibility of neural...
The exchange of information in the brain is accomplished through sequences of action potentials that result from the integration of local microcircuits. Unraveling the connectivity of the neurons that constitute these microcircuits and how they contribute to network activity is vital for understanding how information is relayed through the brain...
We perform many movements every day without much deliberation. However, moving can be seen as a form of decision-making since one of many possible movements must be selected and executed. The decision-making processes that underlie movements are influenced by various factors, including sensory perception, energetics, time, perceived rates of failure...
We present two ways in which measures of information can be used for the design and analysis of neural networks in both the brain and the computer. In the brain, stimulus is often represented as a distributed pattern of activity in a network of neurons. The quality of such population...
Identifying key molecular mechanisms and targets for therapeutic development in sporadic neurodegenerative diseases has been challenging. Therefore, in-depth investigation of genetic forms of disease can provide valuable insight into pathogenic disease mechanisms. The discovery of genetic forms of Parkinson’s disease (PD) has highlighted the importance of the autophagy/lysosomal and mitochondrial/oxidative...
Vertebrate brains evolved to facilitate a diverse array of behaviors and internal cognitive processes. Theories of neural function have proposed that neural computation is organized within populations or ensembles of neurons. Here, we identify ensembles of neurons in the striatum, the main input nucleus of the basal ganglia, in which...
Recent studies have begun to examine white matter connectivity aberrations in psychiatric populations, such as major depressive disorder. Several studies have found reduced white matter integrity (WMI) in depressed samples, though the location of this reduction is not clear. Incorporating symptom measures of depression severity and rumination may allow for...
New neurons are continuously produced in the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus throughout life. These newborn dentate granule cells (DGCs) undergo a stereotyped process of morphological and functional maturation during the first few weeks after differentiation that recapitulates some aspects of postnatal neuronal development. The inhibitory...
Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) are two devastating neurodegenerative diseases that affect 100,000s of people globally. They have a severe adverse impact on society, yet there are currently no early diagnostic tools or disease-modifying therapies available. Despite their clinical heterogeneity, evidence points to these diseases being on...
Temperature affects all biological processes, from the rate of cellular growth and metabolism to the stability of proteins that make up the machinery of life itself. Thus, all organisms must have the capacity to detect and respond to external temperature. Thermosensation endows animals with the ability to sense and respond...
Coordinated movement relies on the precise and controlled activation of populations of motor units, which convert the commands of the nervous system into muscle forces. Motor unit firing patterns are often nonlinear and generated through the response to a combination of ionotropic excitatory and inhibitory commands, as well as metabotropic...
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most prevalent primary central nervous system tumor, characterized by resistance to therapeutic intervention, inevitable recurrence, and ultimately patient death. The dismal prognosis is due in part to underlying molecular factors that promote an intratumoral cellular state heterogeneity and protect tumor cells from cell death pathways....
Human olfactory function is important for a myriad of behaviors, including food seeking, social cognition, memory, emotional regulation, and detecting environmental threats. In animal models, particularly dense olfactory inputs have been shown to target orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a region involved in multimodal sensory integration, reward coding, and flexibly guiding our...
Processing of sensory information in the brain is a pervasive and fundamental phenomenon across animal species and is involved in both "hard-wired" innate responses as well as learned and adaptive behaviors. Here, I show that the avoidance of hot temperature, a simple innate behavior, contains unexpected plasticity and complex processing...
The cerebellum is involved in sensorimotor processing and motor control in the brain. What has been found across many species for many behaviors is cerebellar Purkinje (Pkj) cells and cerebellar nuclear (CbN) cells show activity that is related to and predictive of movements. Less is known about how patterns of...
Decisions in naturalistic environments usually feature delayed and uncertain outcomes that can only be reached after a sequence of actions are performed. For example, canonical stalking and pursuit strategies used by terrestrial predators often involve stages of concealment, pauses where the predator remains motionless, and high speed chase sequences. The...
Protein homeostasis, or proteostasis, is essential for preserving all cellular functions and involves a balance of protein synthesis, folding, trafficking, and degradation. A collapse in proteostasis is a common feature of many neurodegenerative disorders that are characterized by the accumulation of insoluble protein aggregates in the brain. Parkinson’s disease (PD)...