Investigating How the Brain Updates Reward Memories to Guide Decision-Making

WHAT WE DO

Our research explores the brain's mechanisms for remembering details of events that are important to us, and how this repository is dynamically updated to accommodate shifts in the environment and guide behavior.


HOW WE DO IT

behavior

Our lab has developed several tasks to evaluate memory and goal-directed behavior



stereotaxic neurosurgery

We manipulate the activity of neuronal networks to identify how these circuits modulate behavior and how they affect other neural populations



In-vivo electrophysiology

We record the activity of many neurons simultaneously while rats are being exposed to changes in reward or while they are doing memory tasks to uncover the language that the brain uses to control behavior


Immuno-histochemistry

We use histological techniques to identify the specific neurons and brain regions engaged in the behaviors we are studying.

Stereotaxic neurosurgery illustration: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.3926052

Our lab would like to acknowledge that the territory on which we gather when on campus is the ancestral and unceded land of the Nonotuck people. We want to pay respect to the Nonotuck and other Indigenous stewards of these lands and waters and to their elders who have lived here, who live here now, and who will live here in the future.