Neural Networking
With the opening of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Neuroscience Research Building, Caltech scientists have a vital new hub for interdisciplinary brain research.
Tell us about the contributions of someone who is part of the Chen Institute whose work you find inspiring.
“I find [Assistant Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering] Joe Parker’s work really inspiring. He’s going in this completely new direction, trying to understand how the brain evolves and symbiosis evolves. I don’t know what it’s going to reveal, but I feel like it’s such an exciting new direction. Not just studying the brain as this static organ but this thing that’s changing over these evolutionary timescales and really understanding what are the precise changes in the circuits that enable these incredible symbiotic relationships. So I think that’s so pioneering, and I’m really excited to see what comes with that.”
— Doris Tsao (BS ’96), Professor of Biology and T&C Chen Center for Systems Neuroscience Leadership Chair and Director
How to Build a Better Fly Feeder
Research Professor Daniel Wagenaar is a neuroscientist and a problem solver. He also runs the Kevin Xu Neurotechnology Lab, where he helps his fellow scientists find novel solutions to a wide array of research equipment challenges. His move to a larger space in the Chen Building means he can say yes to more projects than ever.
“One of my favorite ever projects was a fly food mover for Betty Hong’s [BS ’02] lab. Betty and I invented this chamber where the flies would just sit in their usual cylinder, but a dish underneath could be moved back and forth at a very slow pace allowing us to surreptitiously change food sources to control what food was available at what time.
“With our new space in the Chen Building, many of the labs we work with will be much closer. It’s surprising how much difference that makes, for people to just be able to walk along the hallway or take an elevator down. It really helps accessibility. And ultimately that’s what this whole thing is about.”
— Daniel Wagenaar, Director of the Kevin Xu Neurotechnology Laboratory
Many Pathways into the Brain
The Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech has been supporting graduate student research since it was inaugurated in 2016. Among them are: Annie Erickson, Chen Graduate Fellow, who aims to understand and map the pathways in the fruit fly brain when in flight; Jonathan D. Kenny, who studies the neural circuit dynamics of general anesthesia; Guruprasad Raghavan, who is growing neurons on a dish to fabricate “cortical computers” with graduate student Varun Wadia; Sanghyun Yi, a Chen Graduate Fellow, who studies how the human brain solves problems to improve machine learning algorithms; and Jennifer Sun, who is training machine learning models to recognize mouse behavior, allowing researchers to process larger volumes of data.
Sleep with the Zebrafishes
Over the last several years, Biology Professor David Prober and his team at Caltech have used zebrafish to make breakthough discoveries in the three known ways that sleep is regulated: homeostatic regulation, which is based on internal cues for sleep need; circadian regulation, which responds to external cues tied to an animal’s 24-hour circadian rhythm; and masking, the direct effects of light and dark on sleep and wakefulness.
In 2019, for example, his lab showed that serotonin produced by regions in the brain collectively known as the raphe nuclei is required for zebrafish to achieve normal amounts of sleep. Since the neurons in the raphe nuclei are most active when animals are awake, the researchers theorized that their release of serotonin during wakefulness leads to a buildup of pressure to sleep. By performing sleep deprivation experiments, they demonstrated that serotonin is essential for homeostatic regulation of sleep.
Prober’s team will soon be able to take their zebrafish sleep studies to the next level when they move into a spacious new lab in the Chen Building that houses a microscope capable of monitoring all of the neurons in a fish’s brain almost simultaneously.
A Universe of Complexity
In the lobby of the Chen Neuroscience Research Building sits a triptych depicting the human brain. It is the work of Greg Dunn, who earned a doctorate in neuroscience before embarking on his artistic career. The large centerpiece, titled Self Reflected, is a National Science Foundation-funded project created by Dunn, his applied physicist collaborator Brian Edwards, and a team of scientists over a two-year period. It is an animated and extraordinarily detailed representation of human brain activity, designed to mirror the functioning of the viewer’s own mind.
“I hope this artwork serves as a daily reminder of the audaciousness of our attempts to tackle some of the most difficult and compelling scientific questions of our time,” says Dunn.