What is hibernation?
Hibernation is a critical strategy that allows many animals to survive without food or water over an entire winter. In small mammals, hibernation is characterized by the alternation between two fundamentally different physiological states: “torpor” and “inter-bout arousal” (IBA). During torpor, animals profoundly reduce their metabolism, respiration, and body temperature (to as low as 2-4°C) for up to two weeks at a time. Torpor bouts are regularly interrupted by spontaneous IBAs, during which major physiological parameters return to normal levels for less than 24 hours.
What are we curious about?
How do evolutionarily conserved neural and endocrine pathways change across seasons and extreme physiological states in hibernators?
What physiological mechanisms enable hibernation?
Can mechanistic insights gleaned from hibernators advance medicine?
What tools do we use?
We use continuous behavioral monitoring, hormone measurements, pharmacology, immunohistochemistry, and exciting neuroscience tools such as fiber photometry and chemogenetics to monitor and manipulate neuronal activity in-vivo.
Why study hibernation?
During torpor, hibernating squirrels decrease their body temperature, heart rate, respiration, and metabolism to levels that would be injurious or fatal to non-hibernators. Yet, throughout a hibernation season, these animals undergo torpor-arousal cycles more than 20 times without adverse effects. Understanding how the hibernating brain and body can withstand these reversible states would be greatly beneficial for human medicine.