The Behavioral & Systems Neuroscience area encompasses faculty and students united by a common interest in the neurobiologicalphysiological bases of behavior, including but not limited to circadian and seasonal rhythms, decision making, sex differentiation and behavior, energy balance, bird song and animal communication, animal spatial orientation and navigation, gene-environment interactions, selective attention and visual perception, social behavior, attachment, developmental processes, physiological substrates of emotion and stress, and motivation,. The methodologies currently employed by faculty and students cover the entire spectrum from behavioral study of animals and humans to computational, cellular, molecular and neuroimaging analyses.<br><br> <br><br>Researchers in the program provide training in a variety of modern behavioral, cellular and molecular, neuroanatomical, and neurobiological techniques necessary to approach questions of interest using animal and human model systems. Available methodologies include: electrophysiology, ERP, fMRI, immunohistochemistry, in vivo 2-photon imaging, optogenetics, chemical genetic methods (DREADDs), in situ hybridization, autoradiography, radioimmunoassay, tract tracing, central and peripheral pharmacological manipulations, lesioning and targeted gene knockout approaches, protein and mRNA detectionquantification, quantitative RT-PCR, and high throughput and targeted genetic screening.