Asahina Lab
Principal Investigator: Kenta Asahina
Institution: Salk Institute for Biological Studies (La Jolla, CA)
Primary Subfield: Neuroscience
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
PROJECT SUMMARY One of central functions of neuromodulation is to adjust the internal representations of sensory information ac- cording to the internal states of an individual. In particular, chemosensation can have dramatically different bio- logical meanings depending on the nutritional state. For instance, the smell of food not only informs an animal where the food is, but also how valuable it is. According to nutritional need, an animal uses the perceived value of the food as a context to adjust the level of competition with other conspecifics. While hunger is known to change the detection thresholds of olfactory and gustatory sensory neurons through neuromodulation, how the nervous system uses chemosensory cues as contextual information for social behaviors remains largely un- known. The long-term goal of this research program is to characterize the neuropeptidergic modulation of chemosensory circuits by deconstructing this physiological process into clearly defined, behaviorally relevant molecular and neuronal events. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is ideal for achieving this goal. As a ge- netically tractable model organism, the fly allows precise control of neuronal…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R01DC015577-09: Peptidergic neuromodulation of microcircuits that control chemosensation-induced behaviors (2026)
- 5R35GM119844-10: Genetic factors controlling the intensity of social behavior (2025)
- 5R01DC015577-08: Peptidergic neuromodulation of microcircuits that control chemosensation-induced behaviors (2025)
- 5R35GM119844-09: Genetic factors controlling the intensity of social behavior (2024)
- 5R01DC015577-07: Peptidergic neuromodulation of microcircuits that control chemosensation-induced behaviors (2024)
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