full stack neurobiology

hormones are sentinels of the environment and of the body's physiological state. we ask how they sculpt neural circuits to match behavior to the body's needs and the environment's demands, and how this goes awry in disease.

clinical practice assumes a blood measurement reflects hormone levels throughout the body. often it does not — organs, and even single cell types within them, set their own local levels. we build tools to map what regulates hormone levels in the brain, and what they mean for brain health and disease.

circulating factors are measurable in blood and other bio-samples, allowing tests in humans. we generate hypotheses in animal models, then test them in behavioral, longitudinal, population, and genetic studies — with the goal of optimizing health and staving off illness.

hormones are potent effectors of brain function, and promising treatments for neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disease. yet they act everywhere: altering them to treat the brain perturbs the rest of the body. we design high-throughput screens to engineer brain-specific hormonal control.