Welcome
We are a group of geneticists, neuroscientists, and computer scientists who are passionate about discoveries of novel targets and models for mental illness through innovation at the confluence of computational, genetic, and genomic methods.
The Kumar Laboratory is located at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. We study neural circuits in the brain whose misregulation leads to behavioral abnormalities including addiction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and depression. Using mouse molecular genetics as a foundation, and a combination of computational, biochemistry, physiology, and imaging techniques, we dissect these complex conditions in mammals.
Primarily, we use functional genomic approaches in mice to identify genes and pathways that regulate these behaviors. We seek to develop better models of human diseases that can be used by the biomedical research community for therapeutics. Recently, we have applied machine learning and artificial intelligence methods to understand animal behavior at high spatial and temporal resolution, objectively, and over long periods of time. Our work has been published in numerous high impact journals such as Science, eLife, Nature Communications Biology, among others.
Latest Lab News and Blogs:

The Kumar Lab is climbing the walls
On the evening of April 23rd, members of the Kumar Lab took advantage of the special "Jax Night" at the Volta climbing gym. These four strong women fearlessly scaled the walls. It was great fun!

Vivek gives inaugural Maine INBRE Data Science Colloquium talk
The talk was at the University of Maine, Orono hosted by Drs. Ben King and Joel Graber. Several members of the lab attended the lecture.

The first Envision Discovery Rack is installed in the Kumar Lab
On April 2, 2025 Allentown and JAX installed the first Discovery Rack in the Kumar Lab. The lab has been working together with a large team on its development over the past 2+years. The system is based on the work that the Kumar Lab has done over the past 8 years. We...

Kumar Lab featured in an article in The Scientist
Our paper that describes the new DIV Sys (aka Envision) was featured in The Scientist. https://www.the-scientist.com/ai-powered-tech-enables-continuous-lab-animal-monitoring-72714 More info here https://www.jax.org/envision AI-Powered Tech Enables Continuous Lab...

Vivek Attends Simons Foundation SFARI meeting
Vivek attended the annual SFARI meeting hosted by the Simons Foundation in NYC. He presented a poster and had awesome pizza!

Four new members join the Kumar Lab
The week of March 31, 2025 was eventful in the lab. We had 4 new members start officially in the lab. Keith Sheppard and Glen Beane started as Principal Software Engineers. Tuan Nguyen started as a Tufts Neuroscience Graduate Student. Tim Leach started as a RAII....

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