Biography
I am a second-year master’s student in the Liang Lab. I graduated from Virginia Tech with a B.S. in Human Development and a minor in Biology. My interests center on ingestive behavior and the neural mechanisms through which stress alters eating and energy balance.
Research Interests
- Diet
- Neurobiology of energy metabolism
- Stress
- Eating disorders
Research Description
My research focuses on how nutrition and diet influence brain function, behavior, and gene expression, with a particular emphasis on the relationships between diet, stress, and energy metabolism.
Currently, I am investigating how chronic stress, specifically social isolation, alters the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis response to acute stressors such as insulin-induced hypoglycemia. To examine this, I employ the RNAscope in situ hybridization technique to analyze the colocalization of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and the immediate early gene c-fos within the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus.
In addition, I am leading a project investigate how social isolation modulates the progression of streptozotocin (STZ)-induced Type II diabetes in early-adulthood rodents. More broadly, my work aims to clarify how metabolic disease and chronic stress interact to influence brain health, including anxiety-like behavior and cognition.
Recent Publications
Xu, X., Zhang, Z., Lin, Y., & Xie, H. (2024). Risk of Excess Maternal Folic Acid Supplementation in Offspring. Nutrients, 16(5), 755. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16050755