Dr. Benson's research interests include the study of ion channels involved in sensation. We have focused on a class of ion channels called Acid-sensing Ion Channels (ASICs), which play a role in responses to nociceptive, taste, and mechanical stimuli. We have discovered that ASICs are highly...

Humans spend about a third of their life sleeping. Yet, our understanding of the cognitive, emotional and neurodevelopmental functions of this essential behavior and how these may be disrupted in clinical populations is still very limited. Sleep disturbances are observed in most major psychiatric...

A high concentration of free ionic zinc in synaptic vesicles is a prominent feature of some of the excitatory pathways in the mammalian forebrain. Despite the wealth of information on its distribution, and role in metalloenzymes and proteins, the role of vesicular zinc remains enigmatic, and serves...

Dr. Hoth is a board certified clinical neuropsychologist with expertise in aging and cognitive changes associated with chronic medical illnesses. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Iowa and completed both her pre-doctoral internship and a two-year fellowship in...

My laboratory is interested in the effect of environmental pollutants, such as neurotoxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and their transformation products on the developing brain. We use exposomics approaches to identify the metabolites formed in various model systems, including animal models...

We study the neural circuits and intraneuronal signaling mechanisms that regulate appetite, body weight, sleep, and cardiorespiratory function in mice and aim to understand how these regulatory processes go awry in metabolic disorders. To this end, we employee state-of-the-art neuroscience...

My research focuses on elucidating central brain mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease, psychosocial disorders, heart failure and sudden cardiac death. The lab uses multidisciplinary approaches including radiotelemetry, optogenetics, neurophysiology, pharmacology, behavioral and molecular...

We combine behavioral, physiological, functional neuroanatomical, and cellular approaches to unravel the neural circuitry that underlies adaptive neuroendocrine responses to stress. Recently we have identified a locus in the basal forebrain that serves as a neural hub for integrating and relaying...

In the lab, we use genetic techniques to isolate and manipulate neurons that mediate basic physiologic functions including sleep, appetite, bladder control, and thermoregulation. My focus lies in identifying and deciphering previously unknown connections between neurons in the brainstem and other...

We aim to uncover the neural mechanisms underlying the homeostatic regulation of appetite and cardiometabolic physiology. To do so, we use genetically engineered mouse models and Cre-dependent AAVs to specifically map neuronal circuits as well as manipulate and record their activity in order to...