Description of Research Expertise

My research on the brain's functional architecture spanned the full range of scales, from nanoscopic (synaptic vesicles), to microscopic (neural circuits), to macroscopic (regional neuroanatomy and behavior). Lab studies focused on retina (Sterling, 13), but theoretical studies considered basic issues of physiological regulation and behavior, leading to the concept of allostasis (Sterling, 2004, 2011). The two lines were integrated in Principles of Neural Design (2015) written with Prof. Simon Laughlin, and What is Health? Allostasis and the Evolution of Human Design (2020). My continuing efforts concern social organization, including civil rights (Sterling, 2021), mental disturbance (Sterling 2023), climate (Nathans and Sterling, 2016), and deaths of despair (Sterling and Platt, 2022; Platt and Sterling 2024).