Mentor Areas
What controls our hunger levels? How do we know when we are full? And why do we keep going back for more potato chips or another slice of cake - even when we are not hungry? The Alhadeff Lab investigates the basic neuroscience underlying food intake, and the gut-brain communication that mediates this behavior as well as other motivated behaviors like drinking alcohol and drug seeking.
Description:
How does the brain control our eating behavior? Undergraduate projects include identifying and characterizing neuron populations and circuits that respond to nutrients and modulate feeding behavior in mice. We studying circuits that control both normal food intake, as well as dysregulated food intake (e.g. eating disorders, obesity).
Preferred Qualifications
No technical requirements. Interested students should be curious about the brain and behavior, hard-working and committed to working at least 10 hrs/week in the lab during the school year, and ~40 hrs/week during the summer. Must be comfortable working in animal models (mice). Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate virtual projects at this time.
Details:
Preferred Student Year
First-year, Second-Year
Volunteer
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to volunteers.Paid
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to paying students they engage in their research, regardless of their work-study eligibility.Work Study
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to hiring work-study-eligible students.