About

We are an interdisciplinary lab housed within the Department of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology and the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Our lab studies the mechanistic basis for individual differences in behavior and how these impact likelihood to develop mental illness. Our work utilizes prairie voles, mice, and post-mortem human tissue, in advanced neurogenetic and circuit-level analysis to better understand how genes and environment shape who we are.

Research topics

• Neuroscience
• Biology
• Ecology
• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Telecommunications
• Medicine
• Evolutionary biology

Selected publications

• Prairie vole pair bonding and plasticity of the social brain

  Trends in Neurosciences · 2022 · 10 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Biology
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Wireless multilateral devices for optogenetic studies of individual and social behaviors

  Nature Neuroscience · 2021 · 207 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Neuroscience
  DOI

• Oxytocin, Dopamine, and Opioid Interactions Underlying Pair Bonding: Highlighting a Potential Role for Microglia

  Endocrinology · 2020 · 78 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Neuroscience
  • Psychology
  • Biology

  Pair bonds represent some of the strongest attachments we form as humans. These relationships positively modulate health and well-being. Conversely, the loss of a spouse is an emotionally painful event that leads to numerous deleterious physiological effects, including increased risk for cardiac dysfunction and mental illness. Much of our understanding of the neuroendocrine basis of pair bonding has come from studies of monogamous prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), laboratory-amenable rodents that, unlike laboratory mice and rats, form lifelong pair bonds. Specifically, research using prairie voles has delineated a role for multiple neuromodulatory and neuroendocrine systems in the formation and maintenance of pair bonds, including the oxytocinergic, dopaminergic, and opioidergic systems. However, while these studies have contributed to our understanding of selective attachment, few studies have examined how interactions among these 3 systems may be essential for expression of complex social behaviors, such as pair bonding. Therefore, in this review, we focus on how the social neuropeptide, oxytocin, interacts with classical reward system modulators, including dopamine and endogenous opioids, during bond formation and maintenance. We argue that an understanding of these interactions has important clinical implications and is required to understand the evolution and encoding of complex social behaviors more generally. Finally, we provide a brief consideration of future directions, including a discussion of the possible roles that glia, specifically microglia, may have in modulating social behavior by acting as a functional regulator of these 3 neuromodulatory systems.

  DOI

• A neuronal signature for monogamous reunion

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020 · 75 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Neuroscience
  • Biology
  • Ecology

  activity. Instead, we identified distinct ensembles of neurons in this region that are recruited during approach to either a partner or a novel vole. The partner-approach neuronal ensemble increased in size following bond formation, and differences in the size of approach ensembles for partner and novel voles predict bond strength. In contrast, neurons comprising departure ensembles do not change over time and are not correlated with bond strength, indicating that ensemble plasticity is specific to partner approach. Furthermore, the neurons comprising partner and novel-approach ensembles are nonoverlapping while departure ensembles are more overlapping than chance, which may reflect another key feature of approach ensembles. We posit that the features of the partner-approach ensemble and its expansion upon bond formation potentially make it a key neuronal substrate associated with bond formation and maturation.

  DOI

Recent grants

• Neuronal basis of social motivation and the failure to adapt to loss

  NIH · $2.5M · 2018–2023

• Variation in serotonin 1a receptor expression as a source of depression risk

  NIH · $807k · 2014–2019

• Variation in serotonin 1a receptor expression as a source of depression risk

  NIH · $264k · 2014–2016

• The neuromolecular basis of adaptation to bond loss

  NIH · $2.6M · 2022–2026

• EDGE: Tools for studying gene function in voles

  NSF · $1.6M · 2018–2023

Frequent coauthors

• René Hen

  72 shared

• Christine A. Denny

  Research Foundation For Mental Hygiene

  66 shared

• Tabia L. Santos

  Hofstra University

  61 shared

• Vanessa A. Gutzeit

  Weill Cornell Medicine

  56 shared

• Meghin Sadsad

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  50 shared

• Suzuko Yorozu

  National Institutes of Health

  49 shared

• Joanna H. Hider

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  49 shared

• Catherine E. Hegarty

  University of California, Los Angeles

  49 shared

Labs

• Donaldson LabPI

Education

• Post-Doc

  Columbia University

  2016

• Ph.D., Psychiatry

  Emory University

  2009

• B.S.

  UCLA Life Sciences

  2002

• A.A.

  Bard College at Simon's Rock

  2000

Similar researchers at University of Colorado Boulder

• Jose-Luis Jimenezh-233
• Joost de Gouwh-186
• Roy Parkerh-161
• Kristi S. Ansethh-159
• Thomas R. Cechh-156