Lisa Hiura

The Hiura lab investigates the ways in which our early life environments and biology interact to produce variation in social behavior over the lifespan. We utilize the socially monogamous prairie vole because they, like humans, are one of the rare mammalian species that form enduring pair bonds with their mating partners. We leverage molecular genetic, optical, and pharmacological techniques to probe the neural mechanisms that enable just a subset of species to form complex social bonds.