Spiegel Lab

Lab research areas

The laboratory researches the ability to adapt to and learn from experiences, which underlies many of our cognitive capabilities. Lab researchers seek to identify the molecular mechanisms through which neural circuits adapt to experience, and to understand how the cellular functions that are regulated by these molecular mechanisms generate an animal’s adaptive behavior. They focus on signaling and transcriptional networks. They apply genomic, molecular, biochemical, electrophysiological and behavioral approaches to understanding how experience-induced signaling and transcriptional networks in subtypes of cortical neurons regulate the connectivity and function of the cortex. Researchers believe this will allow them to untangle how nature and nurture cooperate to regulate adaptive behavior and to understand how mutations in the genome might give rise to psychiatric disorders and to individual variation in cognitive capabilities.