Peter Hasenhuetl

Peter is a postdoc in the lab of Gero Miesenböck at the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at DPAG. Before coming to Oxford, Peter completed an MD-PhD program at the Medical University of Vienna, where he used patch-clamp electrophysiology and mathematical modelling to decipher the kinetic basis of serotonin transport across the cell membrane, and how amphetamines affect this process (in the groups of Michael Freissmuth and Walter Sandtner). During his studies, Peter also visited the labs of Linda Wilbrecht and Jennifer Whistler at the University of California San Francisco, where he studied the molecular and circuit underpinnings of drug addiction. As a postdoc, Peter combines computational and experimental approaches (including optogenetics and two-photon imaging in behaving Drosophila) to investigate how neural circuits support action selection. He is particularly interested in how the interactions among neurons shape their concerted dynamics, how plasticity of these interactions skews such dynamics, and how this impinges on the pertinent behaviour. He pursues this aim in the context of two lines of research: (i) sleep homeostasis and (ii) decision-making in Drosophila. Peter's work has been supported by an Erwin Schrödinger postdoctoral fellowship by the Austrian Science Fund. Please feel free to reach out via email.