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:

Happy Hour at the Chart Room

Last Thursday, the Kumar lab took a well-deserved break and went out to the Chart Room for happy hour together. It was a great chance to enjoy good food and share laughters!

2025 Annual Kumar Lab Photo

Our 2025 lab portrait was expertly done by JAX Creative. Thank you, Tiffany Laufer, for the photo. Since Anshul Choudhary and Alex Berger could not make the photo, Alex added to the portrait using cutting-edge image modification methods. Here is an alternative version...

Jaycee at CVPR 2025

Jaycee Choi, PhD Candidate, recently attended the Computer Vision Pattern Recognition (CVPR) conference in Nashville, Tennessee. CVPR is one of the premier international conferences in computer science that brings together researchers in computer vision. Jaycee...

Kumar Lab hosts first SSPsyGene SING consortium meeting

In January 2025, the Kumar Lab was awarded a RM1 grant to analyze behavior in 100 mouse model of neurodevelopmental disorder. As part of the grant, we have annual meetings of the consortium members. The 2025 meeting was held in JAX, Bar Harbor and organized by Nicole...

Vivek gives keynote at CV4Animals

Vivek gave a remote keynote address for CV4Animals held in Nashville, TN. The talk can be found here.

Free eggs!

One of the perks of being in Bar Harbor - lab folks provide free eggs (Olivia from Rosenthal lab in this case)!

Jake invited to share migraine ethology at IBANGS

This June Jake Beierle, post doctoral fellow in the lab, was invited to share his work at the International Behavioral and Neural Genetics Society meeting this year, and was recognized as an outstanding travel awardee. The work Jake shared leverages advances in...

Vivek presents at the AGE meeting Shock Center Symposium

Vivek attended and presented at the 2025 AGE meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. Vivek was part of the Shock Center Director's Symposium. He presented on Gautam's frailty index work.

Clearing the way for Butterflies!

Marina Santos, Jaycee Choi, and Fionna Kennedy (L-R) helped with spring cleaning at the Charlotte Rhoades Garden & Butterfly Park on May 1st. The crew helped the garden staff prep for their big release date on July 31, 2025. This involved raking and clearing the...