Daniel Spergel, PhD

Daniel Spergel received his A.B. in Biophysics from Columbia University in 1985, where he obtained his introduction to neuroscience research while studying neural development in the lab of Eduardo Macagno. He then studied carotid body oxygen chemoreception (involved in the control of breathing) with Sukhamay Lahiri and earned his Ph.D. in Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1991. He completed his postdoctoral training with Kevin Catt, Stanko Stojilkovic, and Eduardo Rojas at the National Institutes of Health in 1995 and with Peter Seeburg and Rolf Sprengel at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in 2003, where he investigated the modulation by the neurotransmitters GABA and glutamate of the electrical activity, intracellular calcium concentration, and GnRH secretion of GnRH neurons controlling reproduction, and where he helped generate the first successful transgenic GFP mouse model for electrophysiological studies of the GnRH neuron (or any CNS neuron for that matter). He then accepted an offer from Sally Radovick to become a faculty member at the University of Chicago, where he investigated calcium signaling in the pubertal activation of the GnRH pulse generator by the neuropeptide kisspeptin, before coming to Yale as a member of the Department of Psychiatry in 2010 to continue with that project. In 2013, he joined the lab of Anthony van den Pol in the Department of Neurosurgery at Yale, where he explored the GABAergic and glutamatergic modulation of the electrical activity and intracellular calcium concentration of MCH neurons involved in energy homeostasis and sleep-wake regulation. Meanwhile, in collaboration with Valery Grinevich at the University of Heidelberg and the Central Institute of Mental Health, he continued to examine the neurotransmitter and neuropeptide modulation of GnRH neuron activity and GnRH secretion. In 2022, he joined the lab of Rui Chang in the Department of Neuroscience at Yale, where he plans to use electrophysiological, calcium imaging, and optogenetic approaches to characterize the electrical activity and determine the functional connectivity and physiological roles of genetically defined subsets of intracardiac neurons in cardiovascular health and disease.