We are in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College.
Our lab’s research centers on understanding how the brain generates reward, motivation, actions, and habits. To do this, we incorporate a range of techniques for monitoring and studying the activity of brain cells.
We also study how disorders of reward and action arise, like addictions, Parkinson’s disease, and obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders.
Our Research Questions
How are pleasure and motivation generated and represented in the brain?
How do motivation and action processes interact?
What goes wrong when behaviors become too compulsive?
What behavioral or brain interventions can produce lasting changes in reward seeking and habits?