Dr Andrew Allen’s laboratory seeks to understand the neural circuits that regulate autonomic function. The laboratory has focussed on genetic approaches that enable transgene targeting to defined cell groups, mostly involving replication-deficient viruses and then using transgenes to modulate neural activity in different physiological models. This has involved the application of chemogenetic and optogenetic approaches in a number of different brain circuits. Most recently the laboratory has examined how neural circuits in the medulla that generate breathing rhythms interact with circuits generating sympathetic activity to the vasculature – this work is thought to have broad implications for the generation of neurogenic hypertension.