Mentor Areas
Good quality sleep is essential for our mental health. Patients suffering from chronic stress or psychiatric disorders are often plagued by disrupted or insufficient sleep, and disturbed sleep has been shown to increase the risk of developing psychiatric disorders suggesting that the neural circuits controlling sleep are tightly inter-connected with circuits involved in emotional regulation and psychiatric disorders. The goal of our lab is to identify the molecular and neural mechanisms controlling sleep, and to understand how these are interconnected with the neural circuits regulating emotional states in health and disease. To accomplish this, we employ a multi-disciplinary approach: (A) Optogenetic and pharmacogenetic manipulation to examine the impact of cell type specific manipulation on sleep and behaviors. (B) In vivo electrophysiology, deep brain imaging and fiber photometry to observe dynamic changes of neural activity in sleeping and behaving mice. (C) Circuit mapping using viral tools to comprehensively identify the synaptic inputs and outputs of a genetically defined neural population. (D) Gene profiling to identify novel molecular markers of sleep neurons and to understand how the genetic signature of newly identified sleep neurons are influenced by behaviors.
Description:
1. To identify neural circuits underlying sleep regulation
2. To understand how stress influences sleep architecture
Preferred Qualifications
Candidates will learn various techniques such as cryosectioning, immunohistochemistry and mouse behavior
Time commitment: at least 10 hours per week.
Details:
Preferred Student Year
First-year, Second-Year, Junior, Senior
Academic Term
Fall, Spring, Summer
I prefer to have students start during the above term(s).Volunteer
Yes
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.