Description of Research Expertise

NEUROBIOLOGY OF SOCIOAFFECTIVE FUNCTION & RESILIENCE


Psychosocial experiences (e.g., person-person, person-familly, and person-peer group) impact on physiology, health and well-being. Nurturing social interactions or exposure to interpersonal violence and disruption of social bonds, during infancy or adulthood, interact with genetic background to influence risk and resilience for affective disorders.

Our lab uses neurobiological and behavioral approaches in the mouse to examine how aversive socioaffective experiences (i.e. aggression, social isolation, group instability) or positive social experiences (Environmental enrichment , social bonding) affect brain development and function at the molecular, cellular and systems level. Our main projects focus on experience-dependent plasticity of the serotonin system, a phylogenetically ancient and highly conserved neurotransmitter system implicated in regulating multiple aspects of social and affective behaviors

KEY QUESTIONS

- What are the circuits and intracellular signaling mechanisms by which the brain encodes the affective value of social stimuli and update their valence based on experience ?

-How does social experience affect circuits structure and function?

- What differentiates individuals that are resilient from those that are vulnerable to psychosocial stress ?

- Can affective resilience be boosted by specific types of social experiences? What are underlying neurobiological mechanisms?

- By what mechanisms do antidepressants and other types of interventions such as DBS influence socioaffective responses and stress resilience ?

EXPERIMENTAL APPROACHES

Inducible and Cell Targeted Mutations in Mice
Viral-Mediated Gene Transfer
Animal Behavior, social defeat, emotional reactvity
Analysis of intracellular signaling and molecular adaptations
Measure of functional and structural plasticity (Morphometry, Whole Cell electrophysiology in collaboration with Sheryl Beck @ CHOP)
Optogenetics and Pharmacogenetics

CURRENT PROJECTS

Project 1: Reversible acetylation of cytoplasmic proteins and regulation of socioaffective processes and resilience (Keywords: HDAC6, HSP90, tubulin , acetylation, Chaperone complex, GR, resilience, Social avoidance)

Project 2: Top-Down Control of Serotonergic circuits in socioaffective processes and resilience (Keywords: Prefrontal Cortex, Raphe, Optogenetics, Whole cell recordings, Socioaffective responses, resilience )


KEYWORDS

Social Defeat, Stress Appraisal and Coping, Dominance subordination, Depression, PTSD , social Phobia, Antidepressants, Neuroplasticity, Intracellular Mechansisms.