NEURAL CONTROL of APPETITIVE BEHAVIORS ACROSS SPECIES

Animals make state-dependent decisions by integrating sensory cues and internal motivational drives in the nervous system. Our lab is specifically interested in understanding how state-dependent decisions are regulated. We use genetically tractable model organisms, the fly (Drosophila melanogaster) and house mice (Mus musculus), to understand the fundamental principles of how motivational states regulate food intake decisions on the level of molecules, cells, and circuits. Our lab uses techniques ranging from high-resolution quantitative measurements of behavior, multiphoton imaging, neural tracing, and transcriptomics to investigate how physiological states such as food deprivation impact neural activity and gene expression in the brain.