Innate behavioral modulations across different life stages

The balance of risk-taking and avoidance is essential for survival.

Across different stages of life an animal’s priorities shift, which is reflected in changing behavioral preferences both during adolescents, when typically more risks are taken to facilitate exploration, and parenting, when avoiding risk is prioritized to ensure the safety of their young. These behavioral changes are correlated with distinct changes in hormonal levels.

In mice, recently weaned adolescents exhibit high levels of corticosterone while parenting mice have increased oxytocin.

The principles of how these changing hormonal levels impact the processing of information in neural circuits is poorly understood. Visually evoked avoidance behaviors are triggered through circuits of the superior colliculus.

Here I will uncover how changing hormonal levels act to influence the processing of visual stimuli arriving from the retina and the resulting behaviors (e.g. freezing or escape).

I will determine how this circuitry is affected by hormonal changes occurring across different life stages and whether these changes explain the resulting changes in behavior.

To accomplish this, I will measure changes in innate defensive behaviors at different life stages, then identify the underlying circuit mechanisms involved.

My expertise in precise circuit dissection in the retina provides me with the ideal background to uncover the mechanisms underlying the hormonal modulation of circuits in the superior colliculus.

Recent technological advancement in functional imaging and large-scale electrophysiology along with new understandings of cell types and pathways of the superior colliculus provide the appropriate opportunity to identify the local and global modulations of visual processing driving hormone dependent changes in innate defensive behaviors.

Overall, this research will provide valuable insight into how hormonal fluctuations allow animals to adapt to their changing needs across different stages of life.