About

Adam Douglass, PhD, is a faculty member at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, primarily in the Department of Neurobiology. His research exploits the relative simplicity of the larval zebrafish brain to understand how neurons that produce neuromodulators such as dopamine and oxytocin influence essential behaviors including locomotion, pain processing, learning, and social behavior. His lab investigates the control of locomotion by dopaminergic neurons in the hypothalamus, discovering that these neurons are activated during swimming behavior and promote movement by sensitizing locomotor networks to sensory input. Additionally, his work explores how oxytocin neurons, activated by painful stimuli, promote defensive swimming, and how the release of oxytocin and glutamate from these neurons affects downstream targets to elicit specific behaviors. Douglass's research also involves developing the zebrafish relative Danionella translucida as a new model for systems neuroscience, enabling the study of complex behaviors such as social interaction and reward learning through advanced optical and genetic techniques. His contributions include elucidating neuromodulatory circuit functions and establishing innovative models for neuroscience research.

Research topics

• Neuroscience
• Biology
• Chromatography
• Internal medicine
• Medicine
• Biochemistry
• Anatomy
• Biophysics
• Chemistry

Selected publications

• An N‐Terminally Elongated Peptide From <i>Conus rolani</i> Defines a New Class of Ribbon α‐Conotoxins Targeting Muscle <scp>nAChRs</scp>

  The FASEB Journal · 2025-06-19 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Conotoxins, peptides found in cone snail venoms, selectively target ion channels and receptors to incapacitate prey. α-Conotoxins are extensively investigated for their potent modulation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). This study describes the discovery and characterization of RoIA, a novel α-conotoxin from Conus rolani. RoIA belongs to the α4/4 conotoxin class and features an atypical N-terminal elongation of 18 amino acids. The biological activity of RoIA is assessed through both in vivo and in vitro assays using the three potential folding isoforms (globular, ribbon, and bead) of the full-length and truncated (lacking the N-terminal elongation) analogs. The full-length RoIA analog exhibits delayed but potent paralytic activity when administered to mice and fish; the ribbon isoform shows the highest potency. Notably, only the ribbon isoform of the truncated peptide is active on heterologously expressed muscle nAChRs, suggesting that the N-terminal elongation may be released in vivo or form interactions that are not recapitulated in vitro. This discovery challenges the prevailing understanding that native α-conotoxins adopt a globular conformation and illustrates that Conus can explore novel chemical spaces using an alternative disulfide bond connectivity. This research enhances our knowledge of the complex mechanisms by which toxins manifest their physiological effects.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Neuroscience: Special K gets an ‘A’

  Current Biology · 2025-04-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Oxytocin-mediated social preference and socially reinforced reward learning in the miniature fish Danionella cerebrum

  Current Biology · 2024-12-27 · 12 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Optimized Sawhorse Waveform for the Measurement of Oxytocin Release in Zebrafish

  Analytical Chemistry · 2022 · 10 citations

  • Chemistry
  • Biophysics
  • Chromatography

  Oxytocin is a nonapeptide hormone involved in numerous physiological functions. Real-time electrochemical measurements of oxytocin in living tissue are challenging due to electrode fouling and the large potentials needed to oxidize the tyrosine residue. Here, we used fast-scan cyclic voltammetry at carbon-fiber microelectrodes and flow injection analysis to optimize a waveform for the measurement of oxytocin. This optimized waveform employed an accumulation potential of -0.6 V, multiple scan rates, and a 3 ms holding potential at a positive, oxidizing potential of +1.4 V before linearly scanning the potential back to -0.6 V (versus Ag/AgCl). We obtained a limit of quantitation of 0.34 ± 0.02 μM, and our electrodes did not foul upon multiple injections. Moreover, to demonstrate the utility of our method, we measured the release of oxytocin, evoked by light application and mechanical perturbation, in whole brains from genetically engineered adult zebrafish that express channelrhodopsin-2 selectively on oxytocinergic neurons. Collectively, this work expands the toolkit for the measurement of peptides in living tissue preparations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Aesthetic Systems of Participatory Painting: Playing with Paint, Dialogic Art, and the Innovative Collective

  Public Art Dialogue · 2022-01-02 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The potential of aesthetic and conceptual innovation of collectivity through participatory painting can engage both through complexity and playfulness while simultaneously supporting social engagement. Working with communities through public and participatory art is an artistic strategy to amplify the interests of under-represented populations and make contemporary art socially relevant. This paper explores the limits of participatory painting and theorizes a new social painting approach: the Aesthetic System of Participatory Painting (ASOPP). Developed by New Zealand artist, Adam Douglass, ASOPP is an aesthetic system dependent upon participation of diverse styles and perspectives. This paper first contextualises participatory painting approaches and their relationship to play and then examines the ASOPP model of collaboration in Tonga, a Polynesian kingdom of more than 170 South Pacific Islands. Vātaulua was a collaboration with community and patients from the Vaiola Hospital Psychiatric Ward with ON THE SPOT Arts Initiative. This improvisational, dialogic painting model functions as a social and aesthetic bridge linking collectivism of socially engaged art practices with modernist aesthetic sensibilities. With the artist situated within community partnership contexts, the resulting public artworks offer unique relational sensibilities contributing to a sense of belonging, supporting play and high quality artistic outcomes.

  PublisherDOI

• Regenerated interneurons integrate into locomotor circuitry following spinal cord injury

  Experimental Neurology · 2021 · 24 citations

  • Neuroscience
  • Biology
  • Anatomy
  PublisherDOI

• Regenerated Interneurons Integrate Into Locomotor Circuitry Following Spinal Cord Injury

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2020-03-25 · 2 citations

  preprint

  Abstract Whereas humans and other adult mammals lack the ability to regain locomotor function after spinal cord injury, zebrafish are able to recover swimming behavior even after complete spinal cord transection. We have previously shown that zebrafish larvae regenerate lost neurons within 9 days post-injury (dpi), but the functional contribution of these neurons to motor recovery is unknown. Here we show that multiple interneuron subtypes known to play a role in locomotor circuitry are regenerated in injured spinal cord segments during the period of functional recovery. Further, we show that one subtype of newly-generated interneurons receives excitatory input and fires synchronously with motor output by 9 dpi. Taken together, our data show that regenerative neurogenesis in the zebrafish spinal cord produces interneurons with the physiological capacity to participate in the recovery of locomotor function.

  PublisherDOI

• Hypothalamic Dopamine Neurons Control Sensorimotor Behavior by Modulating Brainstem Premotor Nuclei in Zebrafish

  Current Biology · 2020 · 54 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Biology
  • Neuroscience
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Hypothalamic dopamine neurons control sensorimotor behavior by modulating brainstem premotor nuclei

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2020-07-13 · 3 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Summary Dopamine (DA)-producing neurons are critically involved in the production of motor behaviors in multiple circuits that are conserved from basal vertebrates to mammals. While there is increasing evidence that DA neurons in the hypothalamus play a locomotor role, their precise contributions to behavior and the circuit mechanisms by which they are achieved remain unclear. Here we demonstrate that tyrosine hydroxylase 2 -expressing ( th2 +) DA neurons in the zebrafish hypothalamus fire phasic bursts of activity to acutely promote swimming and modulate audiomotor behaviors on fast timescales. Their anatomy and physiology reveal two distinct functional DA modules within the hypothalamus. The first comprises an interconnected set of cerebrospinal fluid-contacting DA nuclei surrounding the third ventricle, which lack distal projections outside of the hypothalamus and influence locomotion through unknown means. The second includes neurons in the preoptic nucleus, which send long-range projections to targets throughout the brain, including the mid- and hindbrain, where they activate premotor circuits involved in swimming and sensorimotor integration. These data suggest a broad regulation of motor behavior by DA neurons within multiple hypothalamic nuclei and elucidate a novel functional mechanism for the preoptic DA neurons in the initiation of movement.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Zebrafish oxytocin neurons drive nocifensive behavior via brainstem premotor targets

  Nature Neuroscience · 2019-07-29 · 68 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: Dissecting the whole-brain circuit mechanisms for oxytocinergic control of pain avoidance behavior

  NSF · $798k · 2017–2023

• Cellular and circuit mechanisms enabling oxytocinergic control of pain defense

  NIH · $1.7M · 2019–2025

• NIH Grant R56MH110529

  NIH · $760k · 2020

Frequent coauthors

• Ronald D. Vale

  Janelia Research Campus

  20 shared

• Joshua P. Barrios

  University of California, San Francisco

  12 shared

• Adam E. Cohen

  Harvard University

  9 shared

• Yoshihisa Kaizuka

  Toyo University

  9 shared

• Alexander F. Schier

  University of Basel

  8 shared

• Michael L. Dustin

  University of Oxford

  6 shared

• Florian Engert

  Harvard University

  6 shared

• Daniel R. Hochbaum

  Harvard University

  6 shared