The central goal of research in my lab is to understand how external cues and internal states act together to modulate motivated behaviors. We aim to identify neural circuits underlying positively- and negatively-valenced motivated behaviors, and to determine how states such as withdrawal, stress, pleasure and arousal impact this circuitry to modulate the intensity and form of cue-elicited motivational states and actions, especially in models of drug and alcohol abuse. Specific questions include: Where and how are motivation and value encoded in the brain? What are the neural and psychological building blocks that contribute to motivated behavior? How do these circuits contribute to alcohol abuse and relapse?
