Nurture vs. Nature. The time old debate… but what if Nurture could actually change our Nature. How could this be accomplished biologically? It turns out Nurture does indeed regulate our Nature, and one incredible pathway through which this is accomplished is paved with what are known as Immediate Early Genes (IEGs). For an outstanding review of the history of discovery of, mechanisms of action of, and clever biological tools created using IEGs and their components, check out this article spearheaded by an awesome graduate student in the Greenberg Lab here at HMS.

In our lab, we want to understand how specific, learned memories are represented in higher association cortices, how specific, learned information is fed back to lower sensory regions, and what effect this feedback has on sensory representations and perception of sensory input. To accomplish this, we will combine genetic techniques pioneered in Aleena’s PhD lab, under guidance of her thesis advisor, Mark Mayford, one of the most brilliant, warm hearted scientists with whom she has worked, to make use of IEG regulatory elements, which will allow us to “tag” neural networks based on their natural activity patterns during learning or recall of memories and subsequently, artificially manipulate these networks to discern how they drive and regulate other regions of the brain as well as an animal’s behavior. We will additionally make use of several newer technologies allowing optogenetic tagging and consequent manipulation of naturally active neural ensembles.