Encoding emotion in neural circuitry

Andrew's work aims to understand how different neurons in the brain communicate with each other to allow them to encode emotional behaviours. Problems with this communication underlie the vast majority of neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders, and so his aim is to find novel ways to combat these disorders by gaining a greater understanding of the processes that they destroy. To achieve this, Andrew uses a combination of in vivo and in vitro viral expression, two-photon microscopy, optogenetics, electrophysiology and behavioural assays to identify and characterise the synaptic, cellular and circuit mechanisms underlying the generation of emotional behaviour.