Biology
My lab is interested in how the cellular architecture of neurons dictates their function. We mostly focus on one serotonergic neuron, a type of cell that plays a critical role in diseases of human emotion. We have built a large repertoire of biological information about one point in the life of this cell in a model organism, and are using this to develop a systems-level understanding of its function. In order to further apply this structural approach, we are developing methods to scan the structures of all neurons in a part of the CNS. We are using this to assay global community-type changes in the nervous system is response to various insults.