{"id":1082,"date":"2020-08-18T21:23:43","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T01:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/?post_type=people&#038;p=1082"},"modified":"2025-09-22T13:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T17:50:10","slug":"daniel-oconnor-phd","status":"publish","type":"people","link":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/directory\/daniel-oconnor-phd\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel O&#8217;Connor"},"featured_media":1138,"template":"","role":[61],"filter":[],"class_list":["post-1082","people","type-people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","role-faculty"],"acf":[],"post_meta_fields":{"_edit_lock":["1758563289:729"],"_edit_last":["729"],"ecpt_people_alpha":["O'Connor"],"ecpt_position":["Professor of Neuroscience "],"ecpt_degrees":["Ph.D. Princeton University "],"ecpt_expertise":["Neural circuits for active touch"],"ecpt_email":["dan.oconnor@jhmi.edu"],"ecpt_bio":["<p>Dr. Daniel O\u2019Connor is\u00a0 professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a researcher at the Zanvyl Krieger Mind\/Brain Institute. He works on the senses of touch and proprioception.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>Dr. O\u2019Connor received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Neuroscience at Princeton University in 2006. After postdoctoral training at the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Dr. O\u2019Connor joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2012. Dr. O\u2019Connor\u2019s laboratory moved to the Zanvyl Krieger Mind\/Brain Institute in 2020.<\/p>"],"ecpt_research":["<p><strong>Neural circuits for active touch<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p>Our goal is to understand how the senses of touch and proprioception enable us to perceive, interact with, and move about the world.<\/p>\r\n<p>Touch is an active sense. Mechanosensory neurons in the skin and deep tissues are activated by movements and interactions with objects, and send signals to the central nervous system that guide subsequent movements and produce perception. Much of our work is focused on this closed-loop active touch process.<\/p>\r\n<p>We explore active touch at essentially all levels of the nervous system, from peripheral mechanosensory neurons to interactions among multiple sensory and motor cortical areas.<\/p>\r\n<p>Our focus is on orofacial and hand function.<\/p>\r\n<p>Ongoing topics of work in our lab include:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>Sensorimotor control of complex tongue movements<\/li>\r\n<li>Tongue mechano-sensing<\/li>\r\n<li>Facial and jaw proprioception<\/li>\r\n<li>Texture and location sensing in the whisker system<\/li>\r\n<li>Neuromodulatory and \u201ctop-down\u201d influences on touch perception<\/li>\r\n<li>Haptic shape perception and tactile-visual interactions<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>We work with multiple species and systems to gain a comparative perspective and leverage tools ranging from mouse genetics to primate behavior. Methods we apply include intracellular and extracellular electrophysiology, two-photon functional imaging, optogenetics, high-speed videography and quantitative behavior.<\/p>\r\n<p>By unraveling the process of active touch, we hope to: discover principles of mammalian brain function; identify ways that sensorimotor circuit dysfunction contributes to neurological and psychiatric illness; inform the design of neuroprosthetics.<\/p>"],"ecpt_publications":["<p>Yang H*, Kwon SE*, Severson KS and <strong>O\u2019Connor DH<\/strong>. Origins of choice-related activity in mouse somatosensory cortex. <em>Nature Neuroscience<\/em>. 2016; 19(1):127-134. PMCID: PMC4696889. *, equal contributions.<\/p>\r\n<p>Kwon SE, Yang H, Minamisawa G and <strong>O\u2019Connor DH<\/strong>. Sensory and decision-related activity propagate in a cortical feedback loop during touch perception. <em>Nature Neuroscience<\/em>. 2016; 19(9):1243-1249. PMCID: PMC5003632.<\/p>\r\n<p>Severson KS*, Xu D*, Van de Loo M, Bai L, Ginty DD and <strong>O\u2019Connor DH<\/strong>. Active Touch and Self-Motion Encoding by Merkel Cell-Associated Afferents. <em>Neuron<\/em>. 2017; 94(3):666-676. PMCID: PMC5528144. *, equal contributions.<\/p>\r\n<p>Minamisawa G, Kwon SE, Chev\u00e9e M, Brown SP and <strong>O\u2019Connor DH<\/strong>. A Non-canonical Feedback Circuit for Rapid Interactions between Somatosensory Cortices. <em>Cell Reports<\/em>. 2018; 23(9):2718-2731. PMCID:\u00a0PMC6004823.<\/p>\r\n<p>Severson KS, Xu D, Yang H and <strong>O\u2019Connor DH<\/strong>. Coding of whisker motion across the mouse face. <em>Elife<\/em>. 2019 Feb 28;8. pii: e41535. PMCID: PMC6395061.<\/p>"],"_thumbnail_id":["1138"],"ecpt_office":["251 Krieger Hall"],"ecpt_google_id":["96YQhUgAAAAJ"],"ecpt_orcid_id":["0000-0002-9193-6714"],"ecpt_twitter":["dan_h_oconnor"],"ecpt_cv":[""],"_ecpt_cv":["field_61e0871dac8e2"],"cv_file":[""],"_cv_file":["field_61e088d12999e"],"ecpt_job_abstract":[""],"_ecpt_job_abstract":["field_61e0873bac8e3"],"abstract_file":[""],"_abstract_file":["field_61e088f52999f"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/people"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people\/1082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1342,"href":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people\/1082\/revisions\/1342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"role","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/role?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"filter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/filter?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}