There Are Other Fish in the Sea: Social Density Measurement by the Neuropeptide Pth2

How do animals cope with stressful and anxiety-producing situations like social isolation? In this 2022 Share Your Research Talk, Lukas Anneser, Ph.D., describes his Ph.D. research on how social isolation alters gene transcription in the #brain of a tiny vertebrate, the zebrafish. He discovered that changes in gene expression of a particular gene, the neuropeptide Pth2, translate directly to #behavior - high levels of Pth2 correlate with lower levels of anxiety in these animals and they interact more with their conspecifics. These findings imply that the social environment regulates gene expression in real-time. Speaker Biography: Dr. Lukas Anneser completed his Ph.D. research at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in the lab of Erin Schuman, Ph.D. His thesis work focused on the role of neuromodulation in response to social isolation. Lukas is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland.