Brain Behavior Functional Genomics

    We study the molecular mechanism of brain metabolism and how the brain is modulating the social behavior. Previous study showed correlation between decreased brain metabolism and aggression in honeybee, but direct evidence to support this hypothesis is missing. The question to ask here is whether decreased brain metabolism in oxidative phosphorylation pathway (images on the bottom of left) cause aggressive behavior. Using both honey bee (Apis mellifera) and fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) (images below) models, we were able to illustrate the possible explanations of aggressiveness across evolutionary conserved species. 

Biological Sciences - Neuroscience:

Hongmei Li-Byarlay et al., Socially responsive effects of brain oxidative metabolism on aggression. PNAS 2014 ; published ahead of print August 4, 2014, doi:10.1073/pnas.1412306111.