Social interactions and behaviors are mediated by a hormone-sensitive brain network. For example, female mice are sexually receptive only during a certain phase of their estrous cycle around ovulation. Yet, it is still unclear how hormones modulate this network’s circuit architecture and dynamics to dictate changes in behavior.

Dr. Meenakshi Asokan will examine this missing link in Dr. Annegret Falkner’s lab at Princeton University. Dr. Asokan hypothesizes that sex hormones reorganize neural dynamics and functional coupling in crucial hubs for top-down control of sociability to drive flexible female social choice. Asokan will use a behavioral assay and computational tools to quantify the hormone-dependent changes in social motivation and preference. She will then pinpoint the location of these differences in the brain, address how these neural ensembles alter the coding of social interactions and manipulate these regions to verify their causal role in hormone-dependent changes in social behaviors. These studies will provide fundamental insight into how sex hormones rewire information processing to impact social behaviors. This information will be invaluable in situations where steep changes in hormone levels are linked to depressive symptoms such as during post-partum, perimenopausal, and pre-menstrual stages in women.

Asokan built her expertise in understanding how neural circuits influence perception and behaviors in Dr. Daniel Polley’s lab at Harvard University. During her graduate studies, Asokan focused on neural substrates that underlie changes in perception following noise-induced hearing loss. She localized this change to layer 5 cortico-collicular axons that innervate the amygdala and striatum, which explains the exacerbated sound-triggered anxiety and aversiveness in hearing loss patients. Additionally, through multi-regional extracellular recordings and optical measurements, Asokan discovered cooperative plasticity in inputs to amygdala as mice learn to reappraise neutral stimuli as possible threats. Asokan will now use her expertise in linking brain regions to changes in social behavior to investigate how sex hormones influence these processes during her postdoctoral research.