Undergraduate research with Dr. Kay Tye
October 2023 - July 2024
Lab website: Tye Lab Direct mentor: Christopher Lee, Ph.D.
Questions we aim to answer
- While acute social isolation has shown to induce prosocial behaviors upon re-introduction to a social group, chronic social isolation tends to produce the opposite, antisocial or even aggressive behaviors, this leads us to wonder what is the exact time course of social isolation?
- How do different timepoints of social isolation affect the representation of social stimuli in the medial prefrontal cortex?
What I did
- Implemented optogenetic modulation in the medial prefrontal cortex of mice during social behavior
- Carried out and analyzed sexual differences in behavior in the timescales of social isolation
- Monitored localized neuronal activity and dopaminergic signaling in vivo
- Extracted features of pose estimation during social interaction for the development of an unsupervised machine learning modeling
- Developed a supervised machine learning model to characterize phenotypic behaviors in mice when given a novel recording
Skills I developed
- Use of deep learning multi-pose animal tracking (SLEAP)
- Immunohistochemistry and brain slicing
- Estrous swabbing
- Social rank and other behavioral testing
- Virus injection and fiber photometry implants in the mouse cortex
Defining moments
- Working in a BIG lab after a summer in a really small one provided me with insight on how labs can sometimes work like a machine, the best results come from thoughtful planning and design, as well as extensive communication
- Writing my first research proposal at the Tye Lab gave me the building blocks that I use today to stop and carefully think on what are the current gaps in research and how can I build a plan to address them
- I performed my first surgery and familiarized myself with multidisciplinary approaches like optogenetics and performing in vivo electrophysiology, techniques that I now take into account when reflecting on how to develop a research plan