Many, if not all, of our behaviors are goal-directed. Motivational states serve to inform relevant goals at any given time. Additionally, much of our behavior is learned, acquired throughout our lifetime and dependent upon plasticity in the brain. I am interested in how motivation and memory interact to produce goal-directed behaviors under both pathological conditions and in situations reflecting natural, biological drives. My research takes a multi-structure approach to investigate adaptations in cortico-limbic-striatal circuits involved in the cognitive, motivational and behavioral components of drug addiction. The laboratory uses behavioral analyses in rats in combination with in vivo electrophysiology and molecular approaches to explore real-time neuronal coding across brain structures and identify target genes of interest and mechanisms of transcriptional regulation.
