CURRENT PROJECTS
1. Behavioral and circuit elements guiding social novelty
Social behaviors are dynamic, experience-based motivational drives critical to our daily lives and to our community well-being. A fundamental aspect of sociability is the capacity to detect and respond to novel social cues as compared to familiar, an action selection mode commonly impaired in neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Our previous work (Molas et al., Nat Neurosci., 2017; Molas et al., Under review) demonstrated that distinct molecular and circuit mechanisms coordinate a differential response to social novelty versus familiarity. Based on these groundworks, the scope of our research is to define a complete network of genetically identified neuronal circuits that orchestrate social novelty responses.
In a more translational view, our research seeks to understand how these neuronal networks are dynamically regulated in genetically susceptible mouse models for neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. Ultimately, our main goal is to open a new window for targeting and manipulating social novelty circuitries and rescue core behavioral domains in neuropathological conditions.
2. Neural circuits governing threat processing and inhibitory adaptive learning
The detection of a potential threat triggers an immediate defensive response vital for survival. Abnormal processing of threat-related information and importantly, an impairment in inhibitory adaptive learning -here referred to as the ability to reduce threat responding upon repeated exposures in the absence of an aversive stimulus- can lead to behavioral maladaptation in many neuropsychiatric conditions.
A second line of our research aims at identifying candidate neuronal circuits that encode various aspects of threat processing and the molecular signatures that reflect learning plasticity to threat-related information. We also study how internal states such as those shifted by pathological conditions of stress dictate threat processing and how these responses adjust with inter-individual genetic variability.