Hanneke verstegen

Assistant Professor of Medicine

I am a neuroscientist with a broad background in neuroscience research and specific training in molecular and cellular biology, as well as behavioral and systems neuroscience. I have expertise in stereotaxic surgery and in designing and executing experimental paradigms using cutting-edge neuroscience techniques and mouse genetics.

I obtained my Ph.D. in the Neuroscience and Brain Technologies Department at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). My PhD thesis work elucidated the signaling pathways and protein kinases that regulate synaptic vesicle neurotransmitter release. Following the conferral of my PhD, I joined Dr. Bradford Lowell’s laboratory at BIDMC/Harvard Medical School as a Postdoctoral Fellow. In the Lowell lab, I focused on understanding the ‘neural circuit basis’ for the regulation of food intake and energy expenditure, with a specific emphasis on identifying and characterizing neuronal subpopulations within specific nuclei of the hypothalamus. My training includes the use of genetically engineered mice combined with AAV technology, optogenetics and chemogenetics, and in vivo fiber photometry. My overarching goal was to link the activity of defined neuronal subpopulations to specific neurobehavioral and physiological responses.

My current research interests include the neural control of bladder function. Because disturbances in central nervous system regulation of bladder and urethral sphincter function can cause or contribute to lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), understanding these control circuits may lead to potential therapies. My lab’s research projects focus on identifying neuronal populations involved in successful bladder function, their regulation by upstream targets and circuits, and whether inhibitory input to this void-triggering pathway may support urinary continence. Our studies aim to reveal how forebrain, brainstem, and spinal inputs converge to control the bladder.

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Complete list of Publications

Selected Publications

  • Nardone S, De Luca R, Zito A. Klymko N, .. Verstegen AMJ, Saper C and Lowell BB. A spatially-resolved transcriptional atlas of the murine dorsal pons at single-cell resolution. Nat Commun 15, 1966 (2024). [pdf]

  • Verstegen AMJ, Tish MM, Szczepanik L, Zeidel ML, and Geerling JG. (2020) Micturition video thermography in awake, behaving mice. J Neurosci Methods. 2020 Feb 1:331:108449 PubMed PMID: 31812917. [pdf]

  • Verstegen AMJ, Klymko N, Zhu Z, Mathai J, Kobayashi R, Venner A, Ross RA, VanderHorst V, Arrigoni E, Geerling JC, Zeidel ML. (2019) Non-Crh glutamatergic neurons in Barrington’s nucleus control micturition via glutamatergic afferents from the midbrain and hypothalamus. Curr Biol. 29(17): 2775-2789. PubMed PMID: 31422881. [pdf]

  • Albayram O, MacIver B, Mathai J, Verstegen A, Baxley S, Qiu C, Bell C, Caldarone B, Zhou XZ, Lu KP, Zeidel ML. (2019) Traumatic Brain Injury-related voiding dysfunction in mice is caused by damage to rostral pathways, altering inputs to the reflex pathways. Scientific Reports. 9(8646): 1-12. Pubmed PMID: 31201348. [pdf]

  • Verstegen AMJ, Vanderhorst V, Gray PA, Zeidel ML, Geerling JC. (2017) Barrington’s nucleus: Neuroanatomic landscape of the mouse “pontine micturition center”. J Comp Neurol. 525(10): 2287-2309. Pubmed PMID: 28340519. [pdf]

  • Fenselau H*, Campbell JN*, Verstegen AMJ*, Madara J, Xu J, Shah B, Resch JM, Yang Z, Mandelblat-Cerf Y, Livneh Y, Lowell BB. (2017) An excitatory ARC to PVH circuit that rapidly induces satiety and is regulated by a-MSH. Nat Neurosci. 20(1): p42-51. Pubmed PMID: 27869800. *equal contribution. [pdf]

  • Campbell JN, Macosko EZ, Fenselau H, Pers TH, Lyubetskaya A, Tenen D, Goldman M, Verstegen AMJ, Resch JM, McCarroll SA, Rosen ED, Lowell BB, Tsai LT. (2017) A molecular census of arcuate hypothalamus and median eminence cell types. Nat Neurosci. 20 (3): 484-496. Pubmed PMID: 5323293. [pdf]