Rate My Professor Eric Horstick

The Horstick Lab examines how environmental and sensory experiences shape neural circuits and animal behavior using zebrafish and other fish models as primary systems. Research employs genetic tools, advanced in vivo imaging techniques, and quantitative behavioral assays to uncover experience-dependent mechanisms of neural plasticity and their evolutionary conservation. Key publications include 'Stac3 is a component of the excitation–contraction coupling machinery and mutated in Native American myopathy' (Nature Communications, 2013), 'Direct activation of the Mauthner cell by electric field pulses drives ultra-rapid escape responses' (American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology, 2014), 'Increased functional protein expression using nucleotide sequence features enriched in highly expressed genes in zebrafish' (Nucleic Acids Research, 2015), 'High-precision registration between zebrafish brain atlases using symmetric diffeomorphic normalization' (GigaScience, 2017), 'Swimming into prominence: the zebrafish as a valuable tool for studying human myopathies and muscular dystrophies' (FEBS Journal, 2013), and 'Molecular and cellular determinants of motor asymmetry in zebrafish' (Nature Communications, 2020). Horstick's research has received funding from the National Eye Institute and other sources, supporting undergraduate research initiatives. He is actively involved in graduate education and currently accepting new graduate students in the Department of Biology.