For many species, social behaviors constitute some of the most important interactions across a lifetime. Due to their complexity, social behaviors are hypothesized to have contributed to the complexity of the mammalian brain and are concurrently highly susceptible to disruptions in neuropsychiatric disease.
The Kassraian Lab investigates the behavioral, neural, molecular, and circuit-level basis of social cognition, with close links to clinical research. Experimental methods include the manipulation and monitoring of neural circuits using optogenetic and chemogenetic approaches, in vivo calcium and neurotransmitter imaging combined with computational analysis of behavioral and neural data acquired in controlled and semi-naturalistic social environments.
