Christopher A Zimmerman, PhD

Christopher A Zimmerman, PhD

Incoming Assistant Professor

University of Utah

Biography

I will start as an Assistant Professor in the University of Utah Department of Neurobiology in January 2026! My lab will focus on body–brain interactions in learning and memory. We will bring together new perspectives and tools — from systems and computational neuroscience, physiology, genomics, and biochemistry — to address basic questions about the neurobiology of interoception and learning.

I will be recruiting lab members at all levels! Prospective graduate students should apply to the University of Utah’s Neuroscience PhD Program or Molecular Biology PhD Program. Prospective postdocs or postbaccs/technicians should contact me directly.

Currently: I am a postdoctoral fellow in Ilana Witten’s lab at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. My postdoc work focuses on a long-standing mystery about learning from gut-to-brain feedback: How are we able to associate the flavors we experience during a meal with postingestive effects like food poisoning that arise much later? We recently discovered (Nature 2025) a learning algorithm that might allow the brain to overcome this long gap between cause (🥘🍲) and effect (🤢🤮): Delayed illness signals from the gut selectively reactivate and strengthen the neural representation of flavors from a recent meal in the amygdala (a key brain region for learning and emotion). This neural plasticity may help us to avoid foods that have made us sick in the future, and shows how the common phrase we associate with unexpected nausea — that “it must be something I ate” — is hard-wired into the brain.

Previously: I was a graduate student in Zachary Knight’s lab in the UCSF Department of Physiology. My PhD thesis research focused on the neurobiology of thirst and drinking behavior.

Key Publications

Complete list of publications available at Google Scholar.
*
A neural mechanism for learning from delayed postingestive feedback. Nature 642, 700⁠–⁠709, 2025.
Heightened lateral habenula activity during stress produces brainwide and behavioral substrates of susceptibility. Neuron 112, 3940⁠–⁠3956, 2024.
Neuroscience: Secretin excites the thirst circuit. Current Biology 32, R1318⁠–⁠R1320, 2022.
The origins of thirst. Science 370, 45⁠–⁠46, 2020.
Layers of signals that regulate appetite. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 64, 79⁠–⁠88, 2020.
A gut-to-brain signal of fluid osmolarity controls thirst satiation. Nature 568, 98⁠–⁠102, 2019.
The forebrain thirst circuit drives drinking through negative reinforcement. Neuron 96, 1272⁠–⁠1281, 2017.
Neural circuits underlying thirst and fluid homeostasis. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 18, 459⁠–⁠469, 2017.
Thirst neurons anticipate the homeostatic consequences of eating and drinking. Nature 537, 680⁠–⁠684, 2016.

Honors & Awards

National Institute on Drug Abuse
BRAIN Initiative K99 Advanced Postdoctoral Career Transition Award
McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience
Allison J Doupe Fellowship
Helen Hay Whitney Foundation
Postdoctoral Fellowship
Society for Neuroscience
Donald B Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Harold M Weintraub Graduate Student Award
Winter Conference on Brain Research
Travel Fellowship
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
National Research Service Award F31 Predoctoral Fellowship
Genentech Foundation
Predoctoral Fellowship
University of California San Francisco
Discovery Fellowship
National Science Foundation
Graduate Research Fellowship

Press & Media

Princeton Neuroscience Institute
How the brain remembers what gave you food poisoning
Sainsbury Wellcome Centre
Q&A: How the brain learns what made you sick
Naked Neuroscience Podcast
How does thirst work in the brain?
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Real-time signals from body to brain help regulate sensation of thirst
*Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology*
A thirst-quenching gut–brain signal
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Your gut controls your thirst and keeps your brain informed
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Thirst controlled by signal from the gut
University of California San Francisco
Had enough water? Brain’s thirst centers make a gut check
University of California San Francisco
New understanding of thirst emerges from brain study

Contact

  • czimmerman@princeton.edu
  • University of Utah, BPRB 390C