Colloquium with Huizhong Tao, PhD, University of Southern California

Dissecting neural circuits for defensive behaviors

Defensive behaviors such as flight and freezing are essential for animal survival in danger of threats. In recent years, my lab has been interested in neural circuits underlying the generation and modulation of defensive behaviors evoked by sensory stimuli. We are using a variety of tools, including optogenetics, chemogenetics, retrograde and anterograde neural tracing and in vivo electrophysiological recordings to dissect circuits for defense related behaviors as well as to understand how neurons along the pathways interpret the sensory signals. I will present our research results on corticofugal controls of different types of defense behavior and regulation of the behaviors via a subthalamic nucleus in context dependent manner.

Dr. Tao is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology and Neuroscience of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. She obtained her PhD in UCSD, and then did postdoc work with Dr. Muming Poo in UC Berkeley, studying spike-timing dependent plasticity and sensory experience dependent synaptic plasticity in the Xenopus tadpole and zebrafish retinotectal system. After establishing her own lab in USC, she developed in vivo whole-cell voltage clamp recording techniques in mouse visual cortex. Her lab was among a few to first use mouse visual cortex as a model to systematically investigate cortical circuitry. Recently her lab also begins to employ optogenetic/chemogenetic tools to dissect neural circuits underlying sensory-evoked behaviors, with a current focus on defensive and aversive behaviors.

Organizer

Brittany Greenough