About Our Research

Instinctive behaviors, such as feeding behavior, sleep/wakefulness and sexual behavior, are mainly regulated by the hypothalamic neurons which containing neuropeptide as a neurotransmitter. We are focusing on these peptidergic neurons and studying the regulatory mechanisms of instinctive behaviors by using the following approaches, molecular biology, histochemistory, electrophysiology, behavioral pharmacology and optogenetics.

Neuronal basis of sentience (Takayuki Yamashita)

Most of us love watching beautiful pictures, eating delicious foods and listening to favorite songs, conciously or subconciously. The ultimate goal of our group is to understand how we establish preferences for certain types of sensory stimulus. Toward this end, we investigate information processing of individual neurons and neuronal networks related to sensation and sensory perception.

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