PhD (2020), Cornell University

 

BA (2014), Reed College

NSF Graduate Research Fellow

 

Email: lch95@cornell.edu

 

 

Research Interests:

Social reinforcement, neurobiology of selective affiliation and prosocial behaviors

 

Specific Interests:

I am interested in investigating how environmental variables and neurochemical mechanisms interact to give rise to prosocial behavior. In particular, I am interested in seeing how variation in social experiences during development may impact adult phenotypes of mate choice and bonding behaviors, and how these experiences may be influenced by or impart changes upon oxytocin and vasopressin expression. I aim to accomplish this task by developing behavioral paradigms that better assess the ecologically relevant variables that may contribute to differences in observed social behaviors among prairie voles.

 

Papers (from the lab):

Lee W, Hiura LC, Yang E, Broekman KA, Ophir AG, Curley JP (2019) Social status in mouse social hierarchies is associated with variation in oxytocin and vasopressin 1a receptor densities. Hormones & Behavior. 114, 104551.

Hiura LC, Kelly AM, Ophir AG (2018) Age-specific and context-specific responses of the medial extended amygdala in the developing prairie vole. Developmental Neurobiology. 78, 1231-1245. [PMID: 30354021]

Hiura LC, Ophir AG. (2018) Interactions between two stages of early life social experiences and sex shape nonapeptide receptor profiles. Integrative Zoology.13, 745-760. [PMID: 29851289].

Kelly AM, Hiura LC, Ophir AG (2018) Rapid nonapeptide synthesis during a critical period of development in the prairie vole: Plasticity of the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus. Brain Structure and Function. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-018-1640-2. [PMID: 29523998]

Kelly AM, Hiura LC, Saunders AG, Ophir AG. (2017) Oxytocin neurons exhibit extensive functional plasticity due to offspring age in mothers and fathers. Integrative and Comparative Biology. 57, 603-618.

 

Undergrads	Date Joined
Sara O’Malley	2018-2020
Rebecca Horowitz	2018-2019
Ruth Witmer	2018 Summer, 2019 Summer
Mandy Chan	2017-Present
Vanessa Lazaro	2016-2019
Oscar Liu	2017- 2018
Sarah Glickman	2017-2018
Johnna Graham	2015-2017 (UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine)
Marcos Moreno (Udall Scholar)	2016-2017
Luisa Diaz Arias (CienciAmerica)	2016 (MD Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia)
Weisi Chen	2015

 

Lisa presenting at SBN, 2016	Science!
Lisa with vole	Luisa presents her summer project, 2016
Vanessa at CUP 2019