Dr. Fadi Issa - East Carolina University

Neural Bases of Social Dominance

One of the major projects in the lab is to determine the neural bases of social aggression. Social animals often engage in agonistic interactions that lead to the formation of stable dominance relationship that consist of either dominants or submissive animals. We are motivated to learn how social rank shapes the nervous system both functionally and morphologically and its effects on locomotor activity. We are using zebrafish as a model organism and focusing primarily on how social dominance among zebrafish lead to differences in the ability of neuromodulatory inputs to regulate locomotor activity in the spinal cord.

Animal behavior research

In addition to my current research I have deep passion and keen interest for the study of animal behavior. I am currently conducing independent study of predator/prey interactions between the freshwater crayfish and resident fish looking at alternative anti-predatory behavioral strategies that crayfish employ to avoid predation. I am exploring the idea that these alternative strategies are what make crayfish so successful in invading new geographical habitats with detrimental ecological consequences to native flora and fauna. When attacked crayfish produce a tailflip escape response the propels them away from the threat. The tailflip escape behavior and the underlying neural circuit mediating it have been studied extensively under laboratory conditions. More recently, we became more interested to see how crayfish utilize the escape response under more natural conditions in their native habitat that permit them to evade capture.

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Last updated: 1/7/20


Lateral giant escape response	Medial giant escape response