The Laboratory for Biological Systems in Stress and Disease studies the systems-level biology of emotional memory and stress in healthy rodents and humans, and examines dysregulation of this biology in animal models of psychiatric disease and human patient populations. We combine modern techniques from systems neurobiology, including optogenetics, in vivo recordings, gene transfer, microarrays, and in vivo calcium imaging, with classic techniques from neuropharmacology, endocrinology, molecular biology, and behavioral neuroscience to address research questions. Our long-term mission is to advance new frontiers in basic science with high translational relevance and provide new biologically-driven, effective treatments for stress-sensitive disease.

Our current lines of research focus on 1) Identifying novel circuit mechanisms for associative emotional memory formation and their dysregulation by stress; 2) Understanding the mechanisms by which emotional memory encoding is modulated; and 3) Studies to identify and characterize the endocrine factors that underlie stress-induced vulnerability to disease including rodent models of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), and obesity, and also understand how these factors regulate normal function in the brain and periphery. We focus on biological factors that are either under- or un-studied, an approach that we believe is key to defining new treatments for disease. We also typically perform longitudinal studies which characterize the impact of stress on behavior and physiology in the weeks to months after stress ceases, an approach that we believe is key to understanding the relationship between stress and disease. Finally, we are increasingly performing studies in both animal and human subjects, an approach that we believe is essential for the validation and translation of our findings.