Research Description

Our research focuses on how the brain controls thermoregulatory behaviors and how the underlying circuits are modulated by immune signals during fever. We address these questions using a combination of behavioral recording, functional calcium imaging, and mathematical modeling in the vertebrate larval zebrafish. Due to the optical accessibility and small size of the larval zebrafish brain we can observe neural activity across the entire brain at cellular resolution in awake, behaving animals. By combining neural activity and behavioral recordings we use machine learning techniques to develop realistic circuit models that quantitatively describe how information is processed by the brain. These models can serve as hypothesis generators for targeted mechanistical research such as electrophysiological studies or targeted neuron ablations.

Mentored Biophysics Students

• Kaarthik Abhinav Balakrishnan