Neuroscience: Faculty Directory

Dr. Hattori received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and postdoctoral training at the University of California San Diego. His laboratory focuses on the neural mechanisms that underlie cognitive functions and learning, as well as how these processes are disrupted in autism. The lab uses systems and computational approaches, including in vivo 2-photon imaging, fiber photometry, optogenetics, virtual reality behaviors, machine learning, and artificial neural networks.

Dr. Puthanveettil graduated from Washington State University where he studied calcium calmodulin dependent protein kinases in the laboratory of Dr. B. W. Poovaiah. He then joined Dr. Eric Kandel’s laboratory at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, for his post-doctoral research on learning and memory storage.

Lab Website: rumbaugh.scripps.ufl.edu/

The Rumbaugh laboratory focuses on molecular and genetic mechanisms that shape synapse and circuit biology within the mammalian nervous system. We do this because cognitive processing that subserves adaptive behavior is executed in response to information flow within neural circuits constructed through a highly specific and defined synaptic architecture. Our principle experimental approach is to regulate the expression of major neurodevelopmental disorder genes in mammalian models and then elucidate the impact that these perturbations have on molecular, cellular, circuit, and behavioral phenotypes. This is a powerful approach that provides molecular insight into the relationship between cell biology within individual neuronal subtypes and how this cell biology shapes the synaptic architecture of neural circuits that subserve cognitive processing and behavioral adaption.

The lab is comprised of three collaborative working groups:

1) Neuronal Cell Biology Group – trainees and staff scientists involved in cell-based projects focused on elucidating molecular mechanisms within in neuronal subtypes that influence synapse function and circuit connectivity.

2) Systems Neurobiology Group – trainees and staff scientists that use rodent models to understand how regulation of NDD gene expression impacts in vivo neural circuit connectivity and how changes in neural connectivity contributes to adaptive behavior.

3) Small Molecule Discovery Group – a collaborative team that includes neuroscience trainees and drug discovery scientists that seek to discover drug-like small molecules that are capable of inducing or suppressing the expression of genes known to regulate synapse biology and neural circuit connectivity. When new probes are discovered, they are shared with the Cell Biology and Systems Neurobiology Groups, where they work together to understand how these probes regulate brain function that guides adaptive behaviors.

Dr. Xu received his Ph.D. in molecular biology at Stanford University, California and postdoctoral training in neuroscience at the University of California San Francisco, California. He subsequently became Professor at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC. In 2013, he moved to the Scripps Research Institute Florida.