Jeffrey G. Tasker, PhD
Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology Tulane Brain Institute
Biography
The Physiology and Synaptic Plasticity of Neural Circuits that Control Stress and Homeostasis
Limbic circuits control emotional behaviors, and synaptic dysregulation in limbic brain structures causes affective disorders, including depression, PTSD, and anxiety. Research in the Tasker lab is aimed at understanding the electrophysiological, synaptic and hormonal mechanisms responsible for integrating intrinsic, synaptic and hormonal signals that coordinate neuroendocrine systems, sympathetic outputs, and behavioral activation, and how these mechanisms change under conditions of acute, chronic, and traumatic stress across the lifespan. They study the stress regulation and plasticity of neural circuits in the hypothalamus and amygdala using brain slice patch-clamp electrophysiology, opto-/chemo-genetic circuit manipulation, immunochemistry, live-cell fluorescence imaging, molecular biology, and genetic mouse and rat models. Their research is focused on the cellular/molecular mechanisms responsible for the stress response, stress modulation, and synaptic plasticity involved in anxiety, traumatic stress, and stress-associated mental health disorders and disruption of physiological homeostasis in the young and old.
Research
The Tasker lab uses brain-slice patch-clamp, genetic, immunochemical, and molecular biology approaches to study the neural circuit organization and electrical and molecular signaling of hypothalamic neuroendocrine cells and amygdalar neurons involved in the brain regulation of physiological homeostasis, stress, depression, obesity, and stress disorders such as posttraumatic stress and anxiety.
Contributions
Jiang, Z.Y.,* Chen, C.,* Weiss, G.L.,* Fu, X., Fisher, M.O., Begley, J.C., Stevens, C.R., Harrison, L.M., and Tasker, J.G. (2019) Acute stress desensitizes hypothalamic CRH neurons to norepinephrine and physiological stress. BioRxiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.31.891408 (preprint) (*equal contributions)
Di, S., Jiang, Z., Wang, S., Harrison, L.M., Castro-Echeverry, E., Stuart, T.C., Wolf, M.E. and Tasker, J.G. (2019) Labile calcium-permeable AMPA receptors constitute new glutamate synapses formed in hypothalamic neuroendocrine cells during salt loading. eNeuro. pii: ENEURO.0112-19.2019. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0112-19.2019.
Chen, C.,* Jiang, Z.,* Fu, X., Yu, D., Huang, H. and Tasker, J.G. (2019) Astrocytes amplify neuronal dendritic volume transmission stimulated by norepinephrine. Cell Reports 29:4349-4361; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2019.11.092. (*equal contributions)
Di, S., Itoga, C.A., Fisher, M.O., Solomonow, J., Roltsch, E.A., Gilpin, N.W. and Tasker, J.G. (2016) Acute stress suppresses inhibition and increases anxiety via endocannabinoid release in the basolateral amygdala. Journal of Neuroscience 36:8461-8470.
Tasker, J.G., Prager-Khoutorsky, M., Teruyama, R., Lemos, J.R., Amstrong, W.E. (2020) Advances in the neurophysiology of magnocellular neuroendocrine cells. Journal of Neuroendocrinology 00:e12826. doi.org/10.1111/jne.12826 (Review)
