We study sickness symptoms and immune-driven behaviors

Why do we feel sick during an infection?
During an infection, animals exhibit a highly stereotyped set of sickness symptoms including fever, fatigue, body aches, changes to appetite, thirst and more. Many believe sickness symptoms are purely the result of invading pathogens and an activated immune system but the brain is essential for controlling physiology, perception and behavior. The goal of the Osterhout lab is to understand how the brain senses an immune response and modulates neural circuits to make us feel sick. We examine symptoms during acute infection, chronic inflammation and other immune-activated states to better understand the general principles governing immune-brain communication and immuno-modulation of neural circuits.
News
8/28/23
Rob Ettaro joins the lab as a Research Scientist
Welcome Rob!
5/30/23
Jackie Nguyen awarded the Neuroimmunology T32
Congrats Jackie!
4/19/23
Michelle Swarovski selected to attend the Cold Spring Harbor Single Cell Analysis Course
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3/9/23
Osterhout Lab awarded a Research Instrumentation Fund
We will use this fund to purchase a spatial transcriptomics intstrument from Nanostring. The imager, arriving in late summer, will be housed in the Imaging Core for shared use. Contact us for more details!
Press
Your brain could be controlling how you get sick
A news feature in Nature describes how scientists are deciphering communication in the brain during immune responses, hoping to find treatments for a range of diseases
Open Box Science
See Jessica present her work on the generation of fever and sickness behaviors on Open Box Science!
Brain Explained
Jessica featured on the Brain Explained podcast