Research
The research.
Four connected stories about how the brain handles stress, and what happens when it can't.
01 · 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.
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02 · 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.
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03 · 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.
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04 · 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 storyHow we work
From a behavior to the cells, genes and connections behind it
- 01Cell-type-specific RNA sequencing (RiboTag)
- 02Activity-dependent tagging of stress ensembles (TRAP2)
- 03Optogenetics
- 04Fiber photometry
- 05Viral gene manipulation
- 06Single-nucleus and spatial transcriptomics (Xenium, Visium HD)
- 07Synaptic proximity labeling (STAPL-Ex, in development)
- 08Cell-type- and circuit-specific transgenic mouse lines
- 09The chronic social defeat stress model
- 10Human stem-cell-derived neurons and brain organoids
- 11Multielectrode arrays
Funding
National Institute of Mental Health (NIH)
R01MH128192, Prefrontal–Accumbens Neurocircuits Mediating Response to Social Stress (2022–2027)
Arizona Biomedical Research Centre
Investigator Grant, Neuronal and Circuit-Specific Maladaptations Contributing to Cocaine Addiction (2023–2027)
The lab has been continuously funded by the National Institute of Mental Health as an independent laboratory since 2014.
Collaborators
Shenfeng Qiu, M.D., Ph.D.
UA College of Medicine – Phoenix
Multiple-PI on the NIMH R01; cortical physiology and circuit mapping
Won Hee Lee, Ph.D.
UA College of Medicine – Phoenix
iPSC-derived brain organoids
Michael C. Kruer, M.D.
Barrow Neurological Institute / Phoenix Children's
Brain organoids, pediatric movement disorders
Jin G. Park, Ph.D.
Arizona State University
Circadian biology
Trent R. Anderson, Ph.D. and Aaron W. McGee, Ph.D.
UA College of Medicine – Phoenix
Neurosteroids, cortical excitability, plasticity
Jinhyun Kim, Ph.D.
Korea Institute of Science and Technology
mGRASP synaptic connectivity mapping
Fred H. Gage, Ph.D.
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Stem-cell lines from research donors (major depression, SSRI response)
Francis J. McMahon, M.D.
NIMH Human Genetics Branch
Stem-cell lines from research donors (16p11.2 copy-number changes, with sibling controls)