Welcome

We are a group of geneticists, neuroscientists, and computer scientists who are passionate about discoveries of novel targets and models for mental illness through innovation at the confluence of computational, genetic, and genomic methods.

The Kumar Laboratory is located at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. We study neural circuits in the brain whose misregulation leads to behavioral abnormalities including addiction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and depression. Using mouse molecular genetics as a foundation, and a combination of computational, biochemistry, physiology, and imaging techniques, we dissect these complex conditions in mammals.

Primarily, we use functional genomic approaches in mice to identify genes and pathways that regulate these behaviors. We seek to develop better models of human diseases that can be used by the biomedical research community for therapeutics. Recently, we have applied machine learning and artificial intelligence methods to understand animal behavior at high spatial and temporal resolution, objectively, and over long periods of time. Our work has been published in numerous high impact journals such as Science, eLife, Nature Communications Biology, among others.

Latest Lab News and Blogs:

Press Article on Dr. Kumar and Dr. Chesler

https://www.jax.org/news-and-insights/2019/may/jax-scientists-speak-out-on-the-crisis-of-opioid-addiction

Arojit’s paper demonstrating that TMOD2 is a regulator of cocaine responses is on Biorxiv.

The paper is currently under review and we hope it is published soon. Meanwhile, the preprint is available here. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/648295v1

Vivek speaks at MDIBL on an opioid crisis panel

MDIBL hosted a meeting of researchers on the opioid crisis in Maine. The panel is part of the 46th Maine Biological and Medical Sciences Symposium (MBMSS), an annual statewide gathering at which students and scientists have the opportunity to network, collaborate,...

Vivek gives a talk at the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport, CT

Vivek gave a talk on the genetics and neuroscience of addiction at the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport, CT. The talk was attended by several dozen museum attendees and organized by JAX government outreach folks. Vivek also met with Connecticut State Representative,...

Brian’s tracking paper published

Brian's paper on robust mouse tracking is published. This paper describes how to track mice in complicated environments. Sean and others contributed to this paper. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-019-0362-1 Data from the paper is here. [button...

Vivek speaks at the 2019 Maine State Science Fair

Vivek spoke about addiction genetics and neuroscience to high schools students from across the state of Maine. Over 200 students competed in over a dozen categories in this year's science fair. More information about the event is here. Arojit Mitra was a...

Vivek gives Maine Engineering Expo Keynote Address

Vivek presents the keynote address at the Maine Engineering Expo. Approximately 150 people attended the banquet. National Engineers Week was initiated to publicly promote the work and contributions of our nation's engineers. During this week, engineering professionals...

Brian’s video compression tests

Visual examples of some of the compression tests. Original sub-panel of video and differences between original and compressed frames. Difference previews are amplified 2x to enhance visibility. Video Acquisition Imaging Hardware All data was acquired using the same...

Lab Lunch May 2017 to celebrate Graduation.

The lab celebrated the end of the school year with a lunch at Side Street Cafe. Congratulations to Kai, who is off to Stanford in the fall. Congratulations to Alden, who is off to University of Massachusetts, Amherst in the fall. A big thanks to Megan McOsker from...