Did you know that the heart has its own “brain”? I did not!
Given my doctoral training as a classical ion-channel electrophysiologist in the cardiovascular system, I found this revelation particularly exhilarating.
So, I joined the Fishman-Engert Group in March 2022 to investigate what (if) this intrinsic cardiac nervous system (ICNS) is sensing and how (if) it communicates. I use physiological and engineering techniques to explore the molecular and cellular intricacies of heart(-)brain communication. I mostly probe live baby fish hearts.
Often, I perform electrophysiological studies on zebrafish cells in and ex vivo. I also dabble a bit in understanding how the neuroendocrine cells of zebrafish gills sense acute changes in oxygen levels.