Faculty

Jeffrey Alberts

About

Dr. Albert's research program is dedicated to describing and elucidating functional and mechanistic aspects of the development of species-typical behavior in rodents. Currently, he is studying sensory and motor capabilities in fetal rats as a means of understanding adaptation to prenatal life as well as anticipation of the postnatal environment. Dr. Alberts is analyzing the ultrasonic vocalizations of infant rodents, not just as a form of acoustic communication with the parent, but also as an aspect of early thermal and oxygen homeostasis. Both of these lines of research reflect the combined behavioral and physiological approach often used in his laboratory. Studies of weaning in rodents are another part of the program, for the transition from suckling to independent feeding is a universal developmental process in mammalian ontogenesis. Because parents are a part of a mammal's typical environment, Dr. Albert's lab also is devoted to novel analyses of parental behavior, including biparental care, and parent-offspring interactions.

Faculty

Jonathon Crystal

About

The lab is focused on developing new animal models of cognition. One benefit of studying cognition in animals is that it may provide insight into impairments in cognition observed in people. Cognitive impairments in people are debilitating, and developing insight into the origins of such impairments offers a tool to improve the effectiveness of treatments. Significant obstacles nonetheless impede the development of animal models of disordered cognition with both construct and predictive validity. Although there is a long history of studying learning and memory in animals, these types of cognitive processes may not match those observed clinically (e.g., Alzheimer's disease features severe impairments in episodic memory). Thus, it is possible that drug-development programs may identify agents effective at the pre-clinical level that subsequently fail when translated to a clinical trial in people. Ultimately, the expansion of the suite of cognitive processes that may be modeled in animals may translate to improved therapies for debilitating memory impairments observed in humans. The long-range goal is to understand how animals process and remember events in time and provide a neuroanatomically guided theoretical framework for understanding memory disorders.

Visit the lab website

Faculty

Julia Heiman

About

We are dedicated to research on the interaction of psychological and physiological factors in people’s sexual lives. Our work aims to improve understanding of human sexuality and support interventions for better sexual, reproductive, and psychosocial well-being

Visit the lab website

Faculty

Edward Hirt

About

Research in our lab generally concentrates on issues related to motivation and performance. The primary current lines of research in our lab focus on (1) the experience of mental depletion and its consequences for subsequent performance and acts of self-control; and (2) the role of political ideology and free will beliefs on various outcome variables, including attributions of responsibility, ascriptions of punishment, and potential for growth/change; and (3) how one's beliefs about the relational self affects social relationship maintenance and satisfaction.

Visit the lab website

Faculty

Andrea Hohmann

About

My lab has identified functional roles of the endocannabinoid system in the nervous system and mapped its distribution in sensory pathways. My research has identified enzymes implicated in endocannabinoid deactivation as novel therapeutic targets for pain and stress-related disorders. My laboratory strives to maximize the therapeutic potential of endocannabinoid signaling systems while minimizing unwanted central nervous system side effects (e.g., psychoactivity and addiction). My lab has also disrupted protein-protein interactions downstream of NMDA receptors to suppress pronociceptive signaling cascades without the adverse effects of NMDAR antagonists (i.e., by targeting interactions between neuronal nitric oxide synthase and its upstream [PSD95] or downstream [NOS1AP] protein partners). My laboratory combines approaches from behavioral pharmacology, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, biochemistry, and molecular biology.

Visit the lab website

Faculty

Thomas James

About

A pervasive idea in cognitive science is that decisions are the result of a comparison of sensory evidence that is accumulated over time. Findings from both neurophysiology and neuroimaging now suggest that the brain solves the problem of perceptual decision-making using a similar accumulator mechanism. Using accumulators as a framework, the PAN Lab seeks to understand how the brain processes sensory evidence, how that sensory evidence interacts with previous experiences, how that interaction contributes to decision making, and how those decisions lead to environmentally-appropriate actions. The research program emphasizes the understanding of fudamental sensory operations and how they may differ across typical and atypical populations. Research involves a combination of experimental methods and analysis techniques, including fuctional MRI, resting state and task-based functional connectivity, structural connectivity, psychophysics, self-report, daily diaries, TMS, and EEG.

Visit the lab website

Faculty

Ehren Newman

About

How do neural circuits give rise to cognition? Our lab examines this question by focusing on the cognitive processes underlying navigation and memory. We take an interdisciplinary approach, combining empirical methods from systems and behavioral neuroscience and theoretical methods from computational neuroscience. Individual projects often seek to uncover the mapping from brain dynamics to behavioral ability. We collect high-density electrophysiological recordings of brain activity in rats and humans and then analyze how that activity relates to performance in behavioral tasks. These analyses are often guided by the predictions of computational models so that our results have direct relevance for formal theories of how neural circuits enable cognition.

Visit the lab website

Faculty

Dale Sengelaub

About

Research in this lab focuses on the processes that regulate the structure and organization of both the developing and adult nervous system, with particular emphasis on sex differences and hormonal regulation. Using a variety of species, neural systems, anatomical, and electrophysiological techniques, we address the factors which regulate neuron number, distribution, morphology, and connectivity in the brain and spinal cord. Processes such as dendritic growth and retraction, and the maintenance of adult neuron morphology after nerve injury or spinal damage are of primary interest.

Visit the lab website

Faculty

Peter Todd

About

The Adaptive Behavior and Cognition Lab–West (ABC-West) is dedicated to exploring the cognitive mechanisms that people (and other animals) use to behave adaptively in their environments. We study the interactions between behavior and environment at multiple scales–including how cognitive mechanisms have evolved in response to particular environmental structures, how behaviors are learned through interactions with the environment, and how behaving and acting in the world can change the environmental structures that agents face in the future. We look at particular adaptively important domains such as mate choice and food choice, and we use tools including agent-based modeling and simulation and laboratory experiments. ABC-West was formed in 2005 through budding from the original ABC Research Group in Berlin, Germany.

Visit the lab website

Faculty

Cara Wellman

About

My research focuses on the neurobiology of stress, a critical variable in the development and expression of many psychological disorders. By using simple animal models that permit the manipulation and control of stress and other relevant variables, I hope to understand the neural causes and consequences of abnormal behavior. I am using such models to characterize alterations in neural plasticity resulting from stress.

Visit the lab website