How do you decide when to eat? Or sleep? Or exercise? Organisms must make behavioral decisions based on an array of both internal state cues (like hunger or time of day) and external environmental cues (like availability of food or temperature). My lab works to decode the biological basis of decision making at the molecular, cellular, and circuit levels using behavioral genetics, electrophysiology and live brain imaging in the premier model organism – Drosophila melanogaster. Our particular focus is on sleep and circadian behavior and physiology. Projects in the lab map neural circuits and signaling molecules that integrate information about the environment to optimally time behavior and physiology. We also investigate how sleep and circadian behavior are dysregulated in the contexts of traumatic brain injury, aging, and nutritional challenge. The Barber lab is particularly interested in sex as a biological variable and has discovered sex-specific roles for neuromodulatory peptides in the fly brain clock, which provides fundamental insights into the degeneracy of behavioral circuits.
Program Faculty
- Annika F. Barber
- Assistant Professor
- Department: Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
- Graduate Program(s): Biochemistry | Cell and Developmental Biology
- Major Research Interest(s): Aging, Behavior, Gene regulation, Neuroscience
- Research Techniques: Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Fluorescent and super resolution microscopy, Genetics
- Research Organism(s): Drosophila
- Email:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - School of Arts and Sciences
- Waksman Institute of Microbiology, Room 234
- 190 Frelinghuysen Road
- Piscataway, NJ 08854-8020
- Key Words: Circadian rhythms, sleep, traumatic brain injury, aging, metabolism, Drosophila, neuromodulation, neural circuits
- Lab Site URL