Graduate Colloquium: Dr. Aaryn Mustoe

Join Dr. Aaryn Mustoe for a semiar entitled Lets Stay Together: Characterizing Physiological and Behavioral Responses to Social Separation Stress in Geriatric Marmosets.

Professor Mustoe of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute is a behavioral endocrinologist interested in biological and ecological mechanisms underlying the expression of social behavior. Primates from Central/South America have been reported to possess unexpected modifications to the endogenous oxytocin ligand, a ligand known to be important for modulating social behaviors among other important functions. This talk will highlight Professor Mustoe’s work investigating evolutionary changes in oxytocin and discuss its impacts on ligand-receptor binding, receptor cell signaling, and social behavior, in both the physiological and evolutionary context.