profile photo of alex keene
  • Professor & Department Head
Research Areas
  • Biological Clocks
  • Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
  • Genetics & Genomics
  • Mechanisms of Biological Resilience
  • Neurobiology
  • Physiology & Systems Biology

Biography

Joined the Department in 2021

Research Interests

Neural regulation of sleep, appetite, and energy homeostasis is critical to an animal’s survival and under stringent evolutionary pressure. Flies, like mammals, suppress sleep when starved, providing a system to interrogate interactions between sleep and metabolism. We have performed a large genetic screens to identify novel regulators of sleep-metabolism interactions, and are currently investigating the genes and neural circuits that integrate these processes. As a complementary approach, we have been working to establish Mexican cavefish as a model for the evolution of sleep in a nutrient-poor environment. We have generated comparative brain atlases and whole-brain functional imaging approaches that have identified a reorganization of the hypothalamus and increased slow wave sleep intensity in cavefish. Together this system has potential to identify conserved genetic, physiological, and anatomical mechanisms associated with variable sleep

 

Laboratory Details

Laboratory Address:
Butler Hall 
Room 201

Educational Background

  • B.Sc. University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 2002
  • Ph.D. Biomedical Sciences, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 2006

Selected Publications

    1. Gallman, K, Rastogi, A, North, O, O'Gorman, M, Hutton, P, Lloyd, E et al.. Postprandial Sleep in Short-Sleeping Mexican Cavefish. J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol. 2024; :. doi: 10.1002/jez.2880. PubMed PMID:39539086 .
    2. Swaminathan, A, Kenzior, A, McCoin, C, Price, A, Weaver, K, Hintermann, A et al.. A repeatedly evolved mutation in Cryptochrome-1 of subterranean animals alters behavioral and molecular circadian rhythms. bioRxiv. 2024; :. doi: 10.1101/2024.09.19.613894. PubMed PMID:39386508 PubMed Central PMC11463651.
    3. Shih, MM, Zhang, J, Brown, EB, Dubnau, J, Keene, AC. Targeted single cell expression profiling identifies integrators of sleep and metabolic state. bioRxiv. 2024; :. doi: 10.1101/2024.09.25.614841. PubMed PMID:39386468 PubMed Central PMC11463630
    4. Brown, EB, Lloyd, E, Riley, R, Panahidizjikan, Z, Martin-Peña, A, McFarlane, S et al.. Aging is associated with a modality-specific decline in taste. iScience. 2024;27 (10):110919. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.110919. PubMed PMID:39381735 PubMed Central PMC11460507.
    5. Ra, K, A, C, B, T, Ac, K, Je, K, Er, D et al.. Evolution of a central dopamine circuit underlies adaptation of light-evoked sensorimotor response in the blind cavefish, Astyanax mexicanus. bioRxiv. 2024; :. doi: 10.1101/2024.07.25.605141. PubMed PMID:39091880 PubMed Central PMC11291158.
    6. Gallman, K, Rastogi, A, North, O, O'Gorman, M, Hutton, P, Lloyd, E et al.. Postprandial sleep in short-sleeping Mexican cavefish. bioRxiv. 2024; :. doi: 10.1101/2024.07.03.602003. PubMed PMID:39005273 PubMed Central PMC11244998.
    7. Choy, S, Thakur, S, Polyakov, E, Abdelaziz, J, Lloyd, E, Enriquez, M et al.. Mutations in the albinism gene oca2 alter vision-dependent prey capture behavior in the Mexican tetra. bioRxiv. 2024; :. doi: 10.1101/2024.06.17.599419. PubMed PMID:38948816 PubMed Central PMC11212897.
    8. Lloyd, E, Xia, F, Moore, K, Zertuche, C, Rastogi, A, Kozol, R et al.. Elevated DNA Damage without signs of aging in the short-sleeping Mexican Cavefish. bioRxiv. 2024; :. doi: 10.1101/2024.04.18.590174. PubMed PMID:38659770 PubMed Central PMC11042282.
    9. Sonti, S, Littleton, SH, Pahl, MC, Zimmerman, AJ, Chesi, A, Palermo, J et al.. Perturbation of the insomnia WDR90 genome-wide association studies locus pinpoints rs3752495 as a causal variant influencing distal expression of neighboring gene, PIG-Q. Sleep. 2024;47 (7):. doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsae085. PubMed PMID:38571402 PubMed Central PMC11236950.
    10. Brown, EB, Lloyd, E, Martin-Peña, A, McFarlane, S, Dahanukar, A, Keene, AC et al.. Aging is associated with a modality-specific decline in taste. bioRxiv. 2024; :. doi: 10.1101/2024.02.01.578408. PubMed PMID:38352472 PubMed Central PMC10862884.
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