Seminar Series: Jaideep Bains, Ph.D. (University Health Network)
Director, Krembil Research Institute (KRI)
Interim Director, Krembil Brain Institute
Senior Scientist, Krembil Brain Institute
University Health Network
My research uses multiple experimental approaches to reveal key features about neural circuits that regulate internal state are also purposed to control behavior and store information in response to challenges. Specifically, my lab uses in vitro slice electrophysiology, in vivo imaging, optogenetics, behavioral analysis tools and physiological assays to characterize neural circuits that decode stress, modify internal states and generate specific coping behaviors. One of my goals is to better understand the mechanisms that allow these circuits, or specific cell populations, to store information related to the modality, intensity and temporal features of stress. My graduate work in Professor Alastair Ferguson’s lab focused on the neural regulation of cardiovascular output and established a key role for nitric oxide as a retrograde transmitter at GABA synapses. I performed in vivo electrophysiology to interrogate long-range hypothalamic-spinal cord connections and whole-cell recordings in brain slices to examine retrograde signals and dendritic excitability. As a Human Frontiers Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Kevin Staley, I performed electrophysiology experiments to establish bi-directional links between synaptic strength and circuit output in the hippocampus.
In addition to my extensive experience in synaptic physiology and electrophysiology I have used circuit mapping approaches to link activity in specific cell populations to different behaviors. My work has linked brief stress exposure and enduring synaptic changes in the hypothalamus (reviewed in Bains et al, Nat Rev Nsci, 2015). We have provided clear evidence supporting a role for astrocytes in controlling the strength of excitatory synapses in the hypothalamus (Gordon et al, Nat Nsci, 2005, Neuron, 2009). More recently, we have shown new roles for hypothalamic CRH neurons as bottom-up controllers for complex behaviors associated with stress coping (Fuzesi et al, Nat Comm, 2016), the transmission and detection of affective states between mice (Sterley et al, Nat Nsci, 2018) and linking stress controllability and active behaviour strategies (Daviu et al, Nat Nsci, 2020).
Talk Title: Threat and urgency – a role for CRH neurons in tuning innate survival behavior
Location: Kent Campus, Integrated Sciences Building Lower-Level Lobby (069)