The overall goal of my lab is to identify neuronal circuitry and signaling mechanisms that regulate distinct stages of adult hippocampal neurogenesis and investigate how circuit- and behavior-level information-processing properties are remodeled by the integration of new neurons into the existing circuits. During my postdoc studies, I identified that dentate gyrus parvalbumin-expressing interneurons (among several interneuron types including somatostatin and VIP) serve as a critical niche component to couple hippocampal circuit activity to the regulation of fate choice of neural stem cells, survival of proliferating neural progenitors, and integration of immature neurons. Furthermore, we recently identified that long-range septo-hippocampal GABAergic circuits regulate NSCs through dentate PV interneurons as an intermediator. I established my lab at UNC four years ago, and we have established multifaceted approaches to investigate neural circuitry and molecular mechanisms regulating adult hippocampal neurogenesis and hippocampal functions, including circuit-based retrograde and anterograde tracing, patch-clamp electrophysiology, calcium imaging, in vivo and in vitro optogenetic and chemogenetic manipulations, lineage tracing abd fate-mapping of adult neural stem cells, and high-resolution confocal microscopy.