Research long ago established that the brain operates asymmetrically, i.e., some of its key functions are lateralized to either the right or left hemisphere of the brain. In humans, for example, language, attention, visual processing, learning, and handedness exhibit left-right functional asymmetries. More recently, studies have shown that people with neuropsychiatric conditions including autism spectrum disorder, depression, and schizophrenia display defects in brain laterality.

Hannes Buelow, Ph.D., and colleagues have identified an asymmetric sensory neural connection between two pairs of sensory neurons in the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans—a connection that changes in response to experience and hormonal signaling. He has received a 5-year, $2.4 million National Institutes of Health grant to conduct behavioral, genetic, and imaging studies on C. elegans to determine how environmental exposures and hormonal influences change the hardwiring of a neural circuit.

Dr. Buelow is a professor of genetics and neuroscience at Einstein.