Glora W Choi

Professor Choi examines the interaction of the immune system with the brain and the effects of that interaction on neurodevelopment, behavior, and mood. She also studies how social behaviors are regulated according to sensory stimuli, context, internal state, and physiological status, and how these factors modulate neural circuit function via a combinatorial code of classic neuromodulators and immune-derived cytokines. Choi joined the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences after a postdoc at Columbia University. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and her Ph.D. from Caltech. Choi is also an investigator in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.

Her laboratory studies how sensory stimuli drive behavioral responses and internal states depending on past experience. Focus is at the level of neural circuits, using olfaction as a model to address three central problems. First, we are working to anatomically and functionally delineate the circuitry that connects sensory representations to specific behavioral outcomes. Second, the lab is asking how learning transforms these circuits, and how neuromodulators shape and modify them. Third, the lab asks how the brain maintains behavioral plasticity, to allow for context dependent behavioral adaptations in response the same sensory stimulus. In understanding how learning links neutral olfactory stimuli with specificity and flexibility to appropriate behaviors, we hope to elucidate mechanisms fundamental to learning across all sensory modalities.