Takuya Osakada Takuya Osakada

Specially Appointed Associate Professor, School of Life Science and Technology, Institute of Science Tokyo *Profile is at the time of the award.

2026HagukumuBiology & Life sciences(hagukumu)

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Research topics: Identification of circuit dynamics controlling appropriate response towards social stress in rodents

Keyword

Summary: In our world, animals including humans have their frequent opportunities to communicate with other conspecifics during their life. There are various types of social behaviors such as winning and losing for establishing social hierarchy, and mother-infant interaction for next generations. In addition, behavior outputs from animals are plastic depending on their previous experience with others. We identified oxytocin neurons in the retrochiasmatic supraoptic nucleus (SOROXT) and oxytocin receptor (OXTR) expressing cells in the anterior subdivision of ventromedial hypothalamus, ventrolateral part (aVMHvlOXTR) as a key circuit motif for defeat-induced social avoidance learning (Osakada T. et al., Nature, 2024). In this project, we want to dissect unexplained brain function controlling social experience-dependent behaviors bidirectionally in rodents.

Message

I am so happy to receive strong support from Inamori Foundation for the coming two years. My motivation in science is to achieve interesting and significant research findings with generous help and effort of my team members and collaborators. Science should be fun, so I will enjoy our science with talented team members and with generous support from Inamori Foundation.