Substance use disorder is a chronic, often relapsing disease that can include a loss of behavioral inhibition and compulsive drug-seeking. Acquisition of a reward seeking [...]

In changing environments, adaptive decision-making requires balancing when to choose familiar, known options with when to explore new, unknown options. This balancing act [...]

Professional development is often bolstered through intentional actions such as networking (Harris, 2018), education, and self-development. Utilizing these tactics can he [...]

Adolescence is a period of neurodevelopment during which risky behaviors often increase. This may be explained by the mismatch in brain maturation between bottom-up rewar [...]

The goal of this dissertation was to understand if sex-specific responses to NAcC chemogenetic manipulations indicate differences in reward, or NAcC input and brain regio [...]