1. One of my core research interests addresses this central question: What are the biological mechanisms that shape (and are shaped by!) individual differences in emotion, personality, and social cognitions? How do these mechanisms explain links to well-being and health? Past work included studies of sex differences in emotional memory [1], personality [2], genetic polymorphisms [3] and gene-by-environment interactions [4]. Our current work focuses on the role of aging, social stress, loneliness, and “Purpose in Life”. My lab has equal footing in psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology, spanning behavioral, neural, and molecular levels of analysis. Our work is mostly conducted in humans and in postmortem brain tissue from donors with extensively documented behavioral phenotypes, but also in cell culture and soon in neurogenetically manipulated rats.
2. A second research interest concerns the etiology of depression. In a paper [5] that has been accessed more than 40,000 times since November 2014 and a TEDx talk that has been viewed 100,000 times since December 2014 [6], I have argued that brain changes associated with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) may be caused by some form of pathogen, which could be viral, bacterial, or parasitic. I also presented an expanded exposition in a book I edited for Oxford University Press [7].
3. A third area of interest concerns Neuroethics. I am a co-founder of the International Neuroethics Society (www.neuroethicssociety.org), which addresses the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of real-world applications of neuroscience. For example, I have published on the use of neurotechnologies in the context of National Security [8] and the emerging field of neurogenethics [9], in which neuroscience and neuroethics converge with genomics, creating a novel set of ELSI questions.
