In our daily lives, emotions guide our behaviors. When we feel sad or scared, we look for comfort. When we feel happy, we want to sing and dance. Specific regions of our brain can integrate multimodal emotional experiences with context and relay this information to downstream areas that regulate homeostasis and/or motor control. In the lab, we use a variety of tools (i.e. cell tagging, molecular profiling, optogenetics, in vivo calcium imaging and behavior) to determine:

1) the specific neuronal populations that can encode salient non-spatial (i.e. predator odor) and spatial (i.e. place) information.

2) the circuit mechanism by which these neurons control innate behaviors, such as feeding, locomotion and reward-seeking.