Sandeep Robert Datta

Sandeep Robert Datta, MD, PhD

Professor of Neurobiology

The brain allows animals to successfully interact with a natural world that is rich with opportunity and rife with danger. These interactions are mediated by sensation and movement, which are used by animals to learn about their environment and to make useful predictions about the future. A major challenge facing neuroscience is to understand how the brain builds meaningful patterns of movement in unrestrained settings where animals can freely sense and act based upon their own motivations and desires. The main goal of the Datta lab is to reveal how the brain composes natural behaviors that are endowed with purpose.

The Datta lab embraces the perspective of the ethologists: if we are to understand how the brain works, we need to think about the actual problems it evolved to solve. Addressing this challenge means studying natural behavior — the kinds of behaviors generated by animals when they are free to act on their own internally-generated goals without physical or psychological restraint…really, the kinds of behaviors you see when you watch lions in the wild, mice in a home cage, or humans at the mall. Importantly, when one observes animals expressing spontaneous, self-generated behavior, it is clear that much of what they are doing is exploring the world — using movement to sense what is out there, and taking advantage of sensation to inform future movements. Answering the question — how does the brain give rise to natural behavior? — therefore requires understanding how sensory and motor systems are usefully intertwined to support cognition.

We therefore study how the brain processes information related to smell (arguably the most important sense for the mice we study in the lab), dissect the basic neural mechanisms that give order and structure to complex natural behaviors, and ask how olfactory and motor systems influence each other to give animals a full account of the world around them. In practice this means we watch mice as they generate (often odor-driven) behavior in both simple and complex settings, monitor and manipulate gene expression and neural circuit activity, and thereby define relationships between brain and natural behavior. Our experiments are designed to address how the brain constructs behaviors that are sensitive to external cues and internal drives, reflect individual experience, develop characteristically over the lifespan, and dynamically evolve through learning; our work takes advantage of an interdisciplinary toolkit including modern techniques — such as functional imaging, closed-loop optogenetics, cell fate mapping and single-cell sequencing — and approaches of our own making — such as machine learning-based methods for decomposing body language into its constituent syllables and grammar.

It is our hope that by exploring neural circuits in which sensation and action intersect — and by using ethology as a lever — we can gain purchase on the fundamental problem of how the brain gives rise to natural behavior.

Publications View
Persistent post-COVID-19 smell loss is associated with immune cell infiltration and altered gene expression in olfactory epithelium.
Authors: Authors: Finlay JB, Brann DH, Abi Hachem R, Jang DW, Oliva AD, Ko T, Gupta R, Wellford SA, Moseman EA, Jang SS, Yan CH, Matsunami H, Tsukahara T, Datta SR, Goldstein BJ.
Sci Transl Med
View full abstract on Pubmed
Automated preclinical detection of mechanical pain hypersensitivity and analgesia.
Authors: Authors: Zhang Z, Roberson DP, Kotoda M, Boivin B, Bohnslav JP, González-Cano R, Yarmolinsky DA, Lenfers Turnes R, Wimalasena NK, Neufeld SQ, Barrett L, Quintão NLM, Fattori V, Taub DG, Wiltschko AB, Andrews N, Harvey CD, Datta SR, Woolf CJ.
Pain
View full abstract on Pubmed
Pseudotumor Cerebri Syndrome With COVID-19: A Case Series.
Authors: Authors: Mukharesh L, Bouffard MA, Fortin E, Brann DH, Datta SR, Prasad S, Chwalisz BK.
J Neuroophthalmol
View full abstract on Pubmed
Persistent post-COVID-19 smell loss is associated with inflammatory infiltration and altered olfactory epithelial gene expression.
Authors: Authors: Finlay JB, Brann DH, Abi-Hachem R, Jang DW, Oliva AD, Ko T, Gupta R, Wellford SA, Moseman EA, Jang SS, Yan CH, Matusnami H, Tsukahara T, Datta SR, Goldstein BJ.
bioRxiv
View full abstract on Pubmed
A transcriptional rheostat couples past activity to future sensory responses.
Authors: Authors: Tsukahara T, Brann DH, Pashkovski SL, Guitchounts G, Bozza T, Datta SR.
Cell
View full abstract on Pubmed
GABA-receptive microglia selectively sculpt developing inhibitory circuits.
Authors: Authors: Favuzzi E, Huang S, Saldi GA, Binan L, Ibrahim LA, Fernández-Otero M, Cao Y, Zeine A, Sefah A, Zheng K, Xu Q, Khlestova E, Farhi SL, Bonneau R, Datta SR, Stevens B, Fishell G.
Cell
View full abstract on Pubmed
GABA-receptive microglia selectively sculpt developing inhibitory circuits.
Authors: Authors: Favuzzi E, Huang S, Saldi GA, Binan L, Ibrahim LA, Fernández-Otero M, Cao Y, Zeine A, Sefah A, Zheng K, Xu Q, Khlestova E, Farhi SL, Bonneau R, Datta SR, Stevens B, Fishell G.
Cell
View full abstract on Pubmed
Internal state: dynamic, interconnected communication loops distributed across body, brain, and time.
Authors: Authors: Kanwal JK, Coddington E, Frazer R, Limbania D, Turner G, Davila KJ, Givens MA, Williams V, Datta SR, Wasserman S.
Integr Comp Biol
View full abstract on Pubmed
Flexible scaling and persistence of social vocal communication.
Authors: Authors: Chen J, Markowitz JE, Lilascharoen V, Taylor S, Sheurpukdi P, Keller JA, Jensen JR, Lim BK, Datta SR, Stowers L.
Nature
View full abstract on Pubmed
Systems Neuroscience of Natural Behaviors in Rodents.
Authors: Authors: Dennis EJ, El Hady A, Michaiel A, Clemens A, Gowan Tervo DR, Voigts J, Datta SR.
J Neurosci
View full abstract on Pubmed