Behavioral Neuroscience/Animal Learning Behavioral Neuroscience
The Behavioral Neuroscience faculty and graduate students currently in the program.
Dr. Mary Cain's research interests include the neurobiological basis of drug abuse using a rodent model. One area of research investigates the neural structures that contribute to elevated drug use caused by genetic or environmental factors. A second research area explores the effects of Pavlovian fear conditioning on drug taking behavior in rats. Methods used in the laboratory include locomotor activity, self-administration, and brain microinfusions. Both research areas are attempting to determine the neuronal structures that contribute to drug taking behavior in order to develop methods to decrease drug use using both behavioral and neurological techniques.
Dr. Mary Cain (785)532-6884 has additional information concerning this research.
Dr. Maria Diehl's research program focuses on the understanding of how social stimuli can alter the neural circuits of fear and avoidance to reduce anxiety-like behaviors and subsequently promote resilient behaviors in rats. She uses a variety of techniques including immunohistochemistry, electrophysiological recordings, and optogenetic manipulations in behaving rats. Research in the Diehl laboratory seeks to understand why some individuals can overcome trauma and develop behavioral resilience, while other individuals go on to develop a neuropsychiatric disease, such as post-traumatic stress or social anxiety disorder. We are also interested in understanding how social stimuli can alter fear-related behaviors and the neural circuits that guide social interactions under aversive conditions.
Dr. Diehl is conducting research as a Project Leader in the Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Approaches to Plasticity (CNAP).
Dr. Maria Diehl has additional information concerning this research on her website.
Dr. Charles Pickens is interested in how alcohol exposure in adolescence or adulthood affects the brain systems involved in learning about rewards and fear-inducing stimuli. He is particularly interested in the brain systems involved in the ability to learn about rewards and flexibly adjust our actions when our goals, or the correct strategies to achieve our goals, change. The lab studies these brain systems with devaluation and reversal learning tasks in rats. He is also interested in brain systems involved in fear and anxiety, and how this fear and anxiety can increase over time after traumatic events. The lab studies this in rats with the fear incubation task that he developed for this purpose. The lab uses brain lesions/temporary inactivations, functional neuroanatomy (measures of neuronal activity and retrograde tracing), and optogenetic, behavioral, and pharmacological approaches to investigate these questions.
Dr. Charles Pickens has additional information concerning this research.
Dr. Bethany Plakke's lab is interested in understanding how cognitive flexibility is impacted in various neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and ADHD. Her lab uses the valproic acid (VPA) model with rodents to induce autism-like symptoms in the animals. Dr. Plakke is interested in better understanding behavioral, sensory, and cognitive changes, as well as possible neurobiological changes that occur within the brain. For instance, can decreases in cerebellar volume of VPA animals predict behavioral deficits in a set-shifting task? The lab uses a variety of behavioral and histological techniques to examine circuit differences between treated and untreated rats.
Dr. Plakke is conducting research from a Pilot Grant from the Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Approaches to Plasticity (CNAP).
Dr. Bethany Plakke has additional information concerning this research.