Sweta Agrawal
- Ph.D. Neuroscience, University of Washington
Dr. Agrawal joined the SoN faculty in 2023. She is a lifelong lover of weird and mysterious biological phenomenon, so when she learned about the brain it was love at first sight. Now her lab studies the neural circuits underlying proprioception and motor control using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster as a model system. In her free time, she enjoys getting outdoors and hunting for mushrooms.
Prospective graduate students and postdocs should contact Dr. Agrawal at sweta@vt.edu.
Proprioception, our sense of the position and movement of our bodies, is our most important sense -- disorders of proprioceptive processing can lead to difficulties with balance, muscle paralysis, and impaired motor coordination and motor learning. However, while comparative work suggests that functionally, proprioceptive systems are largely conserved across a variety of species, animals vary in size, body shape, muscle types, locomotor gaits, and environments, meaning their proprioceptive systems face different challenges. We know little about how such variations impact the function and organization of proprioceptive circuits.
The Agrawal lab studies the neural computations underlying proprioceptive control of movement and how those computations are shaped by motor context or limb shape. We are particularly focused on the proprioceptive system of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. We utilize a variety of techniques, including quantitative behavior, optogenetics, in vivo electrophysiology and 2-photon imaging, EM-based circuit reconstruction, and comparative morphology.
See Dr. Agrawal's Google Scholar here.