Research / Our program
EL PASO, TEXASWe investigate how a system’s history changes its next response.
Our program targets the architecture of sleep, adaptation to changing consequences, and what persists after mitochondrial stress. We build computational analyses and experimental designs around the mechanisms that could explain these changes.
Explore current work
Cells. Circuits.
Cognition. Behavior.
Scope of the program
Our goal is to trace how cellular change alters neural activity and behavior. Each connection becomes a prediction to test with the right measurement and intervention.
Research focus
A cellular readout can report regulation, injury, or a response to ongoing stress. A persistence question needs a defined exposure, a recovery criterion, and a later comparison that separates these explanations.
An open question
Does exposure history change the later response once measured recovery criteria are met?
AR-MEM develops assays for that comparison in C. elegans. Public-data analyses guide readout selection, recovery criteria, and the later-challenge design.
Stress & recoveryResearch focus
A behavioral transition provides a phenomenon to explain. Neural recordings can relate activity to behavior; targeted perturbations can test a proposed causal role, with controls for sensory and motor effects.
An open question
What additional observation or intervention would distinguish competing circuit explanations?
Our sleep work targets the behavioral patterns a circuit account must explain. Neural recordings and targeted interventions would test the next link.
Sleep & biological rhythmsResearch focus
Outcome value, action–outcome contingency, and the ability to perform a task can change separately. A study of flexibility needs a selective contrast and a check that the intended manipulation worked.
An open question
Does behavior adjust to the affected outcome while general performance remains intact?
We are designing the task, selective contrast, and model comparisons for adaptive behavior. A neural explanation must then predict which intervention changes the adjustment.
Adaptive behaviorResearch focus
Timing, bouts, and transitions describe different aspects of a record, but their meaning depends on how behavior was observed and scored. More features are useful when they resolve a comparison and remain robust to measurement choices.
An open question
Does temporal organization add a stable distinction beyond the total?
We map sleep timing, continuity, and transitions from existing records. The analysis retains individual animals and recording batches so estimates reflect independent evidence.
The structure of sleepResearch in progress
Follow each project from its biological question to the comparison that can answer it. The dossiers connect scientific foundations, work underway, and the next experiment.
03 / 03 workstreams
What can the structure of sleep tell us that its total duration cannot?
We map the architecture of sleep: when it begins, how long it lasts, and how often it breaks.
Read the research dossierWhen an outcome changes, what does the action depend on?
We design experiments to test how actions adjust when their consequences change, separating learning from changes in motivation or movement.
Read the research dossier
What can remain after a biological system appears to recover?
We develop assays to test whether mitochondrial stress changes a later response after recovery, separating persistent regulation from residual injury.
Read the research dossierCurrent research focus
Three forms of work move the program forward: extract a temporal pattern, design a discriminating experiment, and build the assay needed to test it.
Research collaboration
Bring a time-resolved dataset, a validated method, or a competing explanation. Help advance a specific question about sleep, adaptation, or recovery.
Discuss a collaborationResearch notes and methods