Garret D. Stuber, Ph.D.
Email: gstuber@med.unc.edu
Phone: (919) 843-7140
Website: www.stuberlab.org
Education:
B.S., Psychology, Chemistry Minor, University of Washington
Ph.D., Neurobiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Postdoctoral training, Ernest Gallo Clinic & Research Center, University of California, San Francisco
Research Interests:
Dr. Stuber's primary research goal is to further delineate the synaptic mechanisms and neural circuitry that underlie addiction and psychiatric diseases. He has the expertise, leadership, and motivation necessary to run a highly successful research program and has had extensive training in both behavioral neuroscience as well as neurophysiology. Throughout his graduate and postdoctoral training, he utilized both in vivo and in vitro methodologies to study rapid dopamine signaling as well as synaptic plasticity during or immediately following behavior. Dr. Stuber's current research focuses on the synaptic and neural circuit mechanisms that underlie adaptive and maladaptive behavioral states that mediate motivated as well as stress and anxiety related behaviors. To accomplish this, his laboratory employs multiple cutting-edge techniques both in vivo and in vitro. Specifically, they use in vivo fast-scan cyclic voltammetry to monitor the release of dopamine, in vivo electrophysiology to monitor neural activity during behavior, and ex vivo patch-clamp electrophysiology to measure additional synaptic alterations following learning. The lab also uses microarrays and next-generation sequencing to characterize transcriptional alterations in genetically defined neurons. These experimental approaches also incorporate optogenetic stimulation or inhibition in vitro and in vivo to allow for pathway-specific perturbation of neural function. Working with his students and postdocs as a cohesive team, the lab's ultimate research goal is to gain a better understanding of the alterations in behavior, cell physiology, and neurotransmitter release that occur within genetically defined neural circuits in animal models of neuropsychiatric diseases and addiction.
Representative Publications:
1. Stamatakis AM, Stuber GD (2012) Activation of lateral habenula inputs to the ventral midbrain promotes behavioral avoidance. Nature Neuroscience. 15, 1105-1107
2. van Zessen R, Phiilips JL, Budygin EA, Stuber GD (2012) Activation of VTA GABA neurons disrupts reward consumption. Neuron. 73, 1184–1194.
3. Stuber GD, Sparta DR, Stamatakis AM, van Leeuwen W Harjoprajitno JE, Cho S, Tye KM, Kempadoo KA, Zhang F, Deisseroth K, Bonci A. (2011) Amygdala to nucleus accumbens excitatory transmission facilitates reward seeking. Nature. 475: 377-380.
5. Tsai HC, Zhang F, Adamantidis A, Stuber GD, Bonci A, de Lecea L, Deisseroth K. (2009) Phasic firing in dopaminergic neurons is sufficient for behavioral conditioning. Science. 324, 1080-4.
