Freja Herborg

Unraveling the complex interactions among neural circuits in the brain is pivotal to advance our understanding of psychiatric disorders and symptoms like social impairments that are common across a spectrum of mental health conditions. Oxytocin is an evolutionarily conserved hormone and signaling molecule that has emerged as a possible mediator of social deficits and is known to interact intricately with other ancient circuits such as the dopaminergic and serotonergic systems, in ways that remain poorly understood. This project will bring together novel genetic disease models of ADHD and depression with state-of-the-art imaging techniques to delineate how disease-relevant changes in dopaminergic and serotonergic signaling affect oxytocin function and influence social behaviors and drug responses. With these efforts, we seek to uncover new insights into the neural processes of social deficits, with potential implications for developing circuit-based strategies to treat social impairments.