Amal Alachkar, PhD, is Professor of Neuroscience and Pharmacology at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on the neural circuits and signaling mechanisms that regulate behavior, and how their disruption leads to neurological and psychiatric disorders. This includes the oxytocin–melanin-concentrating hormone circuit and its role in social recognition, maternal behavior and postpartum resilience. Her lab identified ophthalmate as a novel regulator of motor function acting through the calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR), revealing new implications for movement disorders. She also investigates how adverse conditions during pregnancy, such as malnutrition and stress, disrupt fetal development and program susceptibility to schizophrenia, depression and autism, including the mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of trauma. In addition, her lab studies primary cilia in the brain, including their region-dependent oscillations and circadian regulation, and how cilia dysfunction contributes to neurological and psychiatric disorders.