Dr Daniel Hoops

ARC Grant-Funded Researcher A

School of Biological Sciences

College of Sciences


See all my details at my website, www.danielhoops.com. The text below is taken from the "About" page of my website. 
 
Despite having worked primarily in hospitals throughout my academic career, my main interests are in basic, rather than applied, neuroscience. I want to know how physiological processes result in complex cognition, emotion, personality, and the like. And I want to know how and why these functions evolved.
 
As of mid-2026 I am a postdoc working on brain evolution in snakes and lizards in the research group of Dr Jenna Crowe-Riddell in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Adelaide (soon to be Adelaide University) in Australia.
 
From 2022 to 2025 I was mostly absent from academia, however I kept one foot in the door by co-supervising a PhD student working on the neural basis of the evolution of sociality in the lab of Prof. Martin Whiting in the Department of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. During this time also spent a few months working for each of my previous employers: SickKids Hospital in Toronto, the Douglas Hospital in Montreal, and the Australian National University in Canberra trying to wrap up projects that had been disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic or, if not wrap them up, at least help get them back on track. Finally, I spent six months at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Germany, while my partner was a fellow there.
 
In late 2021 I was a visiting scientist in the Memorial University Department of Chemistry, lab of Prof. Lindsay Cahill. Dr. Cahill is an expert in MRI methods and I’m benefitting from her expertise and resources to process and analyze the extensive collection of reptilian and amphibian neural MRIs I’ve acquired over the past ten years.
 
From 2019 to 2021 I was a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of Dr. John Sled at the Mouse Imaging Centre (MICe) at SickKids Hospital in Toronto. I was also appointed to the Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto.
 
From 2016 to 2019 I was a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of Dr. Cecilia Flores in psychiatry at McGill University. I was based at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre located in the Douglas Mental Health University Institute.
 
I did my PhD at The Australian National University in Canberra, Australia on lizard brain anatomy and evolution under the supervision of Prof. Scott Keogh.  I was co-supervised by Assoc. Prof. Martin Whiting at Macquarie University in Sydney. My thesis was titled "Structure and Evolution of Dragon Brains" and can be viewed for free here.
 
I completed my undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.  I was passionate about both neuroscience and animal biology throughout my degree and I ended up graduating with a double major in both topics.
 
In my spare time I grow an edible garden on my balcony, watch wild birds and mammals and seek out the rare and unusual ones, scour nooks and crannies for wild reptiles and amphibians, and generally try to embrace my wanderlust as much as possible. It's a nice respite from my windowless office. EDIT: at the time of writing (2025), I am now senior enough that my offices generally have windows.

Year Citation
2026 Hoops, D., & Whiting, M. J. (2026). Preliminary Evolutionary Trends of Ctenophorus Dragon (Lacertilia: Agamidae) Lifespans, With a New Longevity Record. Ecology and Evolution, 16(3), 5 pages.
DOI
2024 Hoops, D., Kyne, R., Salameh, S., MacGowan, D., Avramescu, R. G., Ewing, E., . . . Flores, C. (2024). The scheduling of adolescence with Netrin-1 and UNC5C.. eLife, 12, RP88261.
DOI Europe PMC7
2024 Hoops, D., Kyne, R. F., Salameh, S., MacGowan, D., Avramescu, R. G., Ewing, E., . . . Flores, C. (2024). The scheduling of adolescence with Netrin-1 and UNC5C.. bioRxiv.
DOI
2024 Hoops, D., Yee, Y., Hammill, C., Wong, S., Manitt, C., Bedell, B. J., . . . Sled, J. G. (2024). Disproportionate neuroanatomical effects of DCC haploinsufficiency in adolescence compared with adulthood: links to dopamine, connectivity, covariance, and gene expression brain maps in mice. Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, 49(3), E157-E171.
DOI
2024 Hoops, D., Kyne, R., Salameh, S., MacGowan, D., Avramescu, R. G., Ewing, E., . . . Flores, C. (2024). The scheduling of adolescence with Netrin-1 and UNC5C. ELIFE, 12, 33 pages.
DOI WoS3
2022 Hoops, D., Whiting, M. J., & Keogh, J. S. (2022). A Smaller Habenula is Associated with Increasing Intensity of Sexual Selection. Brain Behavior and Evolution, 97(5), 265-273.
DOI Scopus4 Europe PMC2
2021 Van Dyke, J. U., Thompson, M. B., Burridge, C. P., Castelli, M. A., Clulow, S., DIssanayake, D. S. B., . . . Whittington, C. M. (2021). Australian lizards are outstanding models for reproductive biology research. Australian Journal of Zoology, 68(4), 168-199.
DOI Scopus21 WoS19
2021 Hoops, D., Weng, H., Shahid, A., Skorzewski, P., Janke, A. L., Lerch, J. P., & Sled, J. G. (2021). A fully segmented 3D anatomical atlas of a lizard brain. Brain Structure and Function, 226(6), 1727-1741.
DOI Scopus12 WoS11 Europe PMC9
2020 Nagloo, N., Coimbra, J. P., Hoops, D., Hart, N. S., Collin, S. P., & Hemmi, J. M. (2020). Retinal topography and microhabitat diversity in a group of dragon lizards. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 528(4), 542-558.
DOI Scopus4 WoS4 Europe PMC2
2018 Hoops, D., Desfilis, E., Ullmann, J. F. P., Janke, A. L., Stait-Gardner, T., Devenyi, G. A., . . . Keogh, J. S. (2018). A 3D MRI-based atlas of a lizard brain. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 526(16), 2511-2547.
DOI Scopus29 WoS27 Europe PMC23
2018 Hoops, D. (2018). The Secret Caverns of the Dragon's Brain: Current and Potential Contributions of Lizards to Evolutionary Neuroscience. Brain Behavior and Evolution, 91(1), 1-3.
DOI Scopus5 WoS5 Europe PMC3
2018 Hoops, D., Reynolds, L. M., Restrepo-Lozano, J. M., & Flores, C. (2018). Dopamine development in the mouse orbital prefrontal cortex is protracted and sensitive to amphetamine in adolescence. Eneuro, 5(1), 9 pages.
DOI Scopus49 WoS34 Europe PMC46
2018 Salameh, S., Nouel, D., Flores, C., & Hoops, D. (2018). An optimized immunohistochemistry protocol for detecting the guidance cue Netrin-1 in neural tissue. Methodsx, 5, 1-7.
DOI Scopus7 WoS10 Europe PMC8
2017 Hoops, D., & Flores, C. (2017). Making Dopamine Connections in Adolescence. Trends in Neurosciences, 40(12), 709-719.
DOI Scopus113 WoS107 Europe PMC117
2017 Hoops, D., Vidal-García, M., Ullmann, J. F. P., Janke, A. L., Stait-Gardner, T., Duchêne, D. A., . . . Keogh, J. S. (2017). Evidence for Concerted and Mosaic Brain Evolution in Dragon Lizards. Brain Behavior and Evolution, 90(3), 211-223.
DOI Scopus34 WoS35 Europe PMC31
2017 Hoops, D., Ullmann, J. F. P., Janke, A. L., Vidal-Garcia, M., Stait-Gardner, T., Dwihapsari, Y., . . . Keogh, J. S. (2017). Sexual selection predicts brain structure in dragon lizards. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 30(2), 244-256.
DOI Scopus18 WoS17 Europe PMC9
2017 Wylie, D. R., Hoops, D., Aspden, J. W., & Iwaniuk, A. N. (2017). Zebrin II Is Expressed in Sagittal Stripes in the Cerebellum of Dragon Lizards (Ctenophorus sp.). Brain Behavior and Evolution, 88(3-4), 177-186.
DOI Scopus17 WoS14 Europe PMC12
2015 Hoops, D. (2015). A perfusion protocol for lizards, including a method for brain removal. Methodsx, 2, 165-173.
DOI Scopus17 WoS16 Europe PMC14
2013 Boudzoumou, S., Hoops, D., Mamonekene, V., & Jackson, K. (2013). Morphological variation in Monopeltis guentheri from forest habitat in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo (Squamata: Amphisbaenidae). African Journal of Herpetology, 62(2), 117-124.
DOI Scopus2 WoS2
2007 Grant, A., Hoops, D., Labelle-Dumais, C., Prévost, M., Rajabi, H., Kolb, B., . . . Flores, C. (2007). Netrin-1 receptor-deficient mice show enhanced mesocortical dopamine transmission and blunted behavioural responses to amphetamine. European Journal of Neuroscience, 26(11), 3215-3228.
DOI Scopus61 WoS56 Europe PMC58

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