Our laboratory is studying the cognitive neural processes involved in feeding and sexual behavior with the aim of understanding the integrated brain mechanisms for sensing appetite or choosing heterosexual partners. The brain is an amazing system capable of regulating information from the internal and external world and responding appropriately to the environment. However, the problems of food intake such as obesity and eating disorders, and reproductive dysfunctions such as infertility are drastically increasing in the modern society. It may indicate that imbalances are occurring in the brain functions governing preservation of individuals and species under the influence of changes in chemical environments. Our research focuses on the interaction between the brain and the environment, exploring how the brain is affected by the manmade chemical substances, such as endocrine sirupters, as well as by the naturally producing plant-derived chemicals, such as "green oders". This program teaches neuroscientific methods for analyzing higher brain functions such as emotion, learning and motivation. For example, students insert electrodes in the brains of anesthetized rats, expose them to various stimuli and record neural activity. Through this procedures they can directly observe total neural activity from the time of stimulation to the time of activity output. The brain is an inexhaustible source of as yet untapped functional applications for manmade devices. Students will see with their own eyes that although the rat brain is only as large as their fingertip, it is a high-functioning, compact collection of complex elements and gain a more systematic understanding of the brain and behavior. To Page Top