Understanding how the brain processes sensory cues to drive complex behaviors
My research program aims to understand how the brain processes sensory cues to drive complex behaviors and how these processes are altered in neurological and psychiatric disorders such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). With my unique training in protein engineering and systems neuroscience, I am able to develop new multiplexed optical molecular tools and ask previously inaccessible questions, e.g., to study the complex function behind ASD. I have developed innovative multi-color calcium sensors and optogenetic actuators, which have enabled the interrogation of distinct neural cell communication. I am leveraging these multiplex tools to dissect social circuits that constitute excitatory and inhibitory interactions in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a brain region important in ASD, across multiple scales in both healthy and autistic states. My research program will expand into research on the representation of social information in health and disease states at the cellular level within three key areas: 1) local brain regions, 2) input-output relationships within the brain, and 3) on the whole-brain scales by leveraging the development of optical tools. This will further our understanding of the information flow between circuits recruited during social behavior. Furthermore, these approaches will be broadly applicable to the identification of diagnostic markers for neurological disorders, which may inform treatment development.