Dr Yeka Aponte, Ph.D.

Tenured Principal Investigator and Associate Director for Diversity and Inclusion at the National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program (NIH/NIDA IRP).

Adjunct Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins University, Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience.

Dr. Aponte received her Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg. Working with Prof. Dr. Peter Jonas she studied the functional properties of hyperpolarization-activated cation channels and dendritic calcium dynamics in fast-spiking hippocampal interneurons. During her postdoctoral work with Dr. Scott Sternson at the Janelia Farm Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (JFRC/HHMI), she studied neuronal circuits controlling feeding behaviors using optogenetic techniques in awake, behaving mice. She also applied in vivo electrophysiological methods to molecularly defined neuron populations. She is now a Tenured Principal Investigator at the NIH/NIDA IRP, and her laboratory uses a combination of optogenetics, chemogenetics, electrophysiology, fluorescence endomicroscopy, and behavioural assays to elucidate the neuronal basis of survival behaviors (i.e., feeding and pain) and to determine how these neuronal circuits drive the rewarding and addictive nature of food and opioids.