How do immature neuronal circuits control behavior in early life? Young animals, such as infants, do not develop passively until their brains are mature. Rather, developing neuronal circuits are active, responsive to sensory inputs, and drive behavior, in newborns and even in the womb. The Kaplan Lab combines molecular and neurophysiological approaches to investigate how the infant brain controls behavior, using mice as a model. In particular, we focus on two prominent early life behaviors: (1) social interactions with parents and littermates; and (2) sleep. We focus on genetically defined neuron types in subcortical regions such as hypothalamus and brainstem that underlie these behaviors.<\/p>\n
A second line of research focuses on neuronal cell type heterogeneity. Recent work has shown that the hypothalamus and brainstem contain 1000s of distinct neuronal types, defined by their transcriptomes. The behavioral and physiological functions of the vast majority of these neuron types is unknown. We are developing approaches to “de-orphan” these neuron types.<\/p>\n
If you are interested in learning more, or joining our research group, please contact me! We are growing and actively recruiting students and postdocs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1736558,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"otheraff":[],"phd-degree":[2569],"primary":[2332],"research-discipline":[2492,2498,2490,2526,2502,2509],"research-opportunity":[2545,2561,2552,2553],"training-grant":[],"class_list":["post-1736468","faculty-listing","type-faculty-listing","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","phd-degree-phd-neuroscience","primary-biology","research-discipline-bioinformatics-and-genomics","research-discipline-cell-and-developmental-biology","research-discipline-molecular-biology","research-discipline-neuroendocrinology","research-discipline-neuroscience","research-discipline-physiology","research-opportunity-ro-bioinformaticsandgenomics","research-opportunity-ro-developmentstemcellsandregeneration","research-opportunity-ro-molecularandsystemsneuroscience","research-opportunity-ro-neuroscience"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n