SELF-FUNDING MSc BY RESEARCH PROJECT: Circadian Oscillators in Drinking and Feeding Brain Circuits.

Daily or circadian rhythms pervade all aspects of our physiology and behaviour (Hastings et al., 2018). By convention, these rhythms are attributed to the activity of the brain’s suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN). Cells of the SCN contain a molecular clock and the daily cycle in clock genes/protein expression drives 24h variation in SCN neuronal activity. However, clock gene expression is not limited to the SCN and several findings indicate that brain circuits controlling thirst and appetite also contain intrinsic circadian oscillators (Guilding et al., 2009; Northeast et al., 2019). How these oscillators are organised, how they respond to SCN signals, and how they drive rhythms in neuronal activity and behaviour remains unresolved. In this project, live neuronal circuit imaging together with multi-electrode array recordings as well as optogenetic and chemogenetic manipulations will be used to determine how thirst and appetite circuits are organised to initiate, maintain, and terminate ingestive behaviour.