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Weizhe Hong, Ph.D.

Weizhe Hong, Ph.D.

Biography

The Hong Lab employs a multidisciplinary approach to identify the molecular and neural circuit mechanisms underlying normal social behaviors as well as their dysregulations in neuropsychiatric disorders. Social behaviors are essential for the survival and reproduction of animals. The control of social behavior is of particular importance in social species such as humans. Abnormalities in social behaviors are associated with several neuropsychiatric disorders, such as autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia.  Despite its importance, many fundamental questions regarding social behavior and its disorders still remain unanswered. We aim to understand how social behavior is regulated at the molecular and circuit level and how social behavior and social experience lead to molecular and circuit level changes in the brain.

We study these questions across molecular, circuit, and behavioral levels, by linking genes to circuits to behaviors. To do that, we take a multi-disciplinary approach and utilize a variety of experimental and computational technologies, including but not limited to optogenetics/chemogenetics, in vivo/vitro calcium imaging and electrophysiology, various genetic and molecular biology techniques, systems approaches such as next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics, and engineering and computational approaches such as machine learning and computer vision.

Ronald M. Harper, Ph.D.

Ronald Harper, Ph.D.

Biography

The laboratory examines neural mechanisms underlying sleep state: control of breathing, somatomotor activity, and cardiovascular action in developing and adult small animal preparations. Neural mechanisms are examined through neurophysiologic techniques which include assessment of intrinsic optical changes in neural tissue, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and chronic single neuron recording; the optical imaging and cell recording studies are often combined with microdialysis techniques to determine neurochemical mechanisms underlying cell action. We found that a substantial portion of sleep effects on normal and disordered breathing result from rostral brain influences on pontine and medullary structures, that activity over wide areas of these structures can be visualized during ventilatory and pressor challenges in freely behaving animals, and that immature development of mechanisms controlling descending rostral brain influences on breathing can place the organism at risk.

Carolyn R. Houser, Ph.D.

Carolyn Houser, Ph.D.

Biography

Research Interest: Neurochemical anatomy, neuronal plasticity and development of the CNS

The broad research interests of the laboratory are the neurochemical anatomy and morphological plasticity of the mammalian central nervous system. Research is focused on the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) system. GABA is an extremely important neurotransmitter in many brain regions and may also have trophic roles during development of the nervous system. Both the presynaptic neurons that use GABA as a neurotransmitter and the postsynaptic sites at which these neurons exert their influence are being studied. Immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization methods are used to study the localization and regulation of the proteins and mRNAs of two forms of the synthesizing enzyme for GABA, glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) and multiple subtypes of the GABA-A receptor. Interrelationships between the GABA neurons and their receptors are being studied in the normal brain, during development and in experimental conditions in which the GABA system is altered. The brain region of major interest in these studies is the hippocampus.

The goals of a second but related group of studies are to identify the morphological and neurochemical changes that occur in epilepsy. Such changes are being studied in human tissue and in animal models of seizures. These models allow us to identify the changes that occur following an initial insult to the nervous system and then to determine the progression of morphological and neurochemical changes that may lead to the development of increased excitability and spontaneous seizures.

Baljit Khakh, Ph.D.

Biography

Baljit S. Khakh received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Cambridge in 1995. During his graduate studies, he also spent some time at the Geneva Biomedical Research Institute. Dr. Khakh completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Graeme Henderson at the University of Bristol, followed by a fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, working in the laboratories of Drs. Henry A. Lester and Norman Davidson as a Wellcome Trust International Prize Traveling Research Fellow, and Senior Research Fellow in the Division of Biology. In 2001, Dr. Khakh returned to Cambridge in the Division of Neurobiology at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Dr. Khakh joined UCLA in April 2006.

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