Anita DevineniAssistant Professor

Education

• B.S., Stanford University, 2006
• Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco 2012

Research Area

• Genetics, Cell, and Developmental Biology
• Neuroscience

Research Description

Our lab studies how neural circuits transform sensory cues from the world into flexible behavioral responses. The taste system is an ideal model to address this question: we use our sense of taste to decide what to eat, and our responses to food are profoundly modulated by internal signals such as hunger, experience, and reward. Our lab investigates taste processing in the fruit fly Drosophila because it offers genetic tools to study neural circuits at single-cell resolution, enabling us to achieve a mechanistic understanding of circuit function. We combine a broad range of approaches, from molecular studies to optogenetics, functional imaging, connectomics, behavior, and computational modeling.
 
Specific questions we are investigating include: 1) How do flies integrate taste, hunger, and experience to guide their behavior? 2) How does the brain encode taste stimuli and transform sensory responses into motor signals? 3) How do internal states reconfigure taste processing in the brain? 4) How are taste and reward signals integrated during normal feeding and chronic overeating?

Publications