Ferguson Lab

University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix

Circuits of Resilience

The Ferguson Lab studies the brain circuits, cell types and genes behind depression, addiction and resilience, and uses what it learns to look for new treatments.

Explore the research

Re·sil·ience/rɪˈzɪl.jəns/(noun)

the ability to adapt and recover in the face of stress.

Here in the Ferguson Lab, we study how chronic stress changes the brain's reward system, and why some brains adapt while others slide toward depression or addiction. We follow the question down to single cell types, single genes and single connections between neurons.

Our research
Deveroux Ferguson, Ph.D., principal investigator

Deveroux Ferguson, Ph.D.

Associate Professor (Tenured), Basic Medical Sciences

The research

Four connected stories

How the brain handles stress, and what happens when it can't.

A graduate student works at a stereo microscope in the Ferguson Lab

Stress & resilience

The resilience question

Two mice go through the same repeated social stress. One keeps engaging with others. The other starts to avoid them. We look for what's different inside their brains.

Read the story

A lab member pipettes samples into a gel at the bench

Addiction & reward

How drugs rewrite the reward system

Cocaine and morphine change how reward neurons read their genes, and in mice some of those changes outlast the drug. We study those marks, cell type by cell type.

Read the story

A researcher wearing red laser-safety goggles works at an optical rig while a colleague looks on

Synapse tools

Surgery at the synapse

We are building molecular tools to remove synapses from one chosen type of neuron, and to read what sits inside a single kind of connection.

Read the story

Three lab members at work at the bench

Human brain models

From mouse to human

We grow brain organoids from human stem cells to ask whether what we find in mouse reward circuits holds in human neurons.

Read the story

Deveroux Ferguson holds a sample up to the light while lab members work at the benches around him

The lab at work, February 2020.

Photo: Adam Brooks, UA College of Medicine – Phoenix Media Productions, 2020

Inside the brain

Follow the circuit

How stress reaches the reward hub, and where our work begins.

How we work

Our methods

Short animations of the experiments behind our papers.

Each clip covers one step: the chronic stress model, the behavioral tests, cell-type-specific RNA sequencing, and what we found.

The model

Chronic social defeat stress

Ten days of brief encounters with a larger, aggressive mouse, followed each day by 24 hours of sensory contact across a divider.

The test

The social interaction test

Time spent near an unfamiliar mouse separates susceptible from resilient animals.

More readouts

Anxiety and reward

The elevated plus maze, the open field and sucrose preference measure anxiety and anhedonia.

One cell type at a time

Reading genes from D1 neurons

RiboTag lets us isolate and sequence the mRNA of a single cell type, here D1 neurons in the nucleus accumbens.

What we found

Shisa6 and SIRT1

Genes that moved in opposite directions in D1 neurons of susceptible and resilient mice, Shisa6 among them, and SIRT1, a regulator of many synapse genes.

Animated by the lab. Sources: Golden et al. Nat Protoc 2011; Kim et al. J Neurosci 2016; Kim et al. Mol Psychiatry 2021; Kim et al. Biol Psychiatry 2024.

Confocal image of tagged medium spiny neurons in red and green

From Kim et al., Mol Psychiatry 2021, Fig. 1c (CC BY 4.0)

Lab spotlight

Hee-Dae Kim, Ph.D.

Assistant Research Professor

Leads the SIRT1 and Shisa6 projects, using fiber photometry and spatial transcriptomics. Joined in 2014 as the lab's first postdoctoral fellow; co-inventor on the synapse-surgery patent.

Meet the people

7,400+ CITATIONS · H-INDEX 33 · 47 PAPERS · NIH-FUNDED SINCE 2014 · EDITORIAL BOARD, MOLECULAR PSYCHIATRY

Latest

New from the lab

Confocal image of stress-tagged prefrontal neurons that project to the nucleus accumbens, in red on blue

Transl Psychiatry · 2026

A nucleus accumbens-projecting prefrontal cortex circuit underlies chronic social stress-induced depression-like behaviors

Ma X, Kim H, Zhang L, Chen P, Wei J, Cui Y, …, Ferguson D, Qiu S

A specific group of prefrontal cortex neurons that connect to the nucleus accumbens is recruited by chronic social stress. Turning them on made susceptible mice social again; turning them off made resilient mice avoidant.

From Ma et al., Transl Psychiatry 2026, Fig. 2B (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Transl Psychiatry 2026;16(1)PubMedPMCDOI

June 4, 2026 · Papers

Ma et al., Translational Psychiatry 2026: a prefrontal-to-accumbens circuit in chronic social stress

With the Qiu Lab, the lab reported that a prefrontal cortex circuit projecting to the nucleus accumbens contributes to depression-like behavior after chronic social stress in mice.

Translational Psychiatry

March 1, 2026 · Lab news

Institutional award funds an Axion Maestro multi-electrode-array system for the College

Dr. Ferguson (PI), with Shenfeng Qiu, Won Hee Lee and Hee-Dae Kim, won a competitive College of Medicine – Phoenix award to acquire an Axion Maestro multielectrode-array system as a shared resource for the College.

January 1, 2026 · Lab news

Hee-Dae Kim appointed Assistant Research Professor

Dr. Hee-Dae Kim, a long-time member of the lab, was appointed Assistant Research Professor in Basic Medical Sciences effective January 2026.

All news & media

Join the lab

We're looking for curious people who want to understand how the brain handles stress.

How to join