Howe Lab

Betül joined the Howe lab as a Brain, Behavior and Cognition Ph.D. student in the fall of 2022. She received her B.A. in English Literature with a minor in Psychology, and then her M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Boğaziçi University, Turkey. During her undergraduate studies in Behavioral Neuroscience Lab, Betül utilized animal models of anxiety and depression to study differential behavioral effects of environmental enrichment as well as behavioral, cognitive, and neurochemical impacts of ketamine as a novel antidepressant. She was also a member of Psychoepigenetics Lab where she studied gene-environment interactions in the prenatal period. During her M.S. studies in the Behavioral Biology Lab, Betül discovered the mesmerizing world of dopamine and focused on improving the efficacy of Deep Brain Stimulation in treatment of motor symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease. Here in the Howe Lab, Betül is utilizing fiber photometry to investigate how dopaminergic and cholinergic signaling differ across striatum during neurodegeneration in alpha-synuclein mice.