During my time in the University of Massachusetts Amherst I studied maternal behavior in rats. I learned several new techniques and had my first experience working with rodents (actually switched from invertebrates to vertebrates!).

Here’s a nice picture of mPOA neurons with triple labelling: VTA-projecting (Fluorogold, yellow), Esr1 (red), c-Fos (white).

This work materialized in my MSc. thesis: Mapping a pup-resposive pathway from medial preoptic area to ventral tegmental area.