Overview
The lab specializes in integrative neuroscience, in particular, the neurophysiology and anatomy of brainstem circuits controlling autonomic and respiratory function. The lab leverages gene transfer technology to modulate and record neuronal activity (optogenetics, chemogenetics, in vivo calcium imaging), and gene interference technology to study the loss of gene function.
Neural control of blood pressure across physiological states
Blood pressure is the product of cardiac output and total peripheral resistance, which are tightly regulated by a highly conserved network of cells in the brainstem. Our understanding of the neural systems that regulate the cardiovascular system has limits. For example, we still lack a firm grasp of the location and relative importance of the neurons that control the sympathetic nervous system and regulate the cardiovascular system. The lab is using single cell transcriptomics to identify and study novel cell populations involved in the sympathetic regulation of the cardiovascular system.
Central chemoreceptor function in the homeostatic control of breathing
Homeostatic alveolar ventilation varies according to the activity of chemoreceptors that are sensitive to circulating oxygen and carbon dioxide. The lab is interested in the role of chemoreceptors in a brain region called the retrotrapezoid nucleus in the physiological response to CO2. We have recently shown that neurons in the retrotrapezoid nucleus are important for sleep disruption during CO2 exposure (Souza et al 2020), and we are pursuing experiments to better understand this function.
Check what Cajal has said before you begin working on any part of the nervous system.
-Advice from Le Gros Clark cited in Swanson’s translation of Cajal’s Histology of the Nervous System (as read in Bill Blessing’s excellent book ‘The Lower Brainstem and Bodily Homeostasis’
The Abbott Lab 