Hypnosis: a state of human consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion. Theories explaining what occurs during hypnosis fall into two groups. Altered state theories see hypnosis as an altered state of mind or trance, marked by a level of awareness different from the ordinary conscious state. In contrast, nonstate theories see hypnosis as a form of imaginative role enactment. During hypnosis, a person is said to have heightened focus and concentration. The person can concentrate intensely on a specific thought or memory, while blocking out sources of distraction.
Basal forebrain cholinergic inputs to the cortex are known to contribute to attentional performance. A major focus of my laboratory has been to study the receptors mediating the effects of ac...
The idea of schizophrenia typically conjures up images of people who hear voices, see visions and have delusional beliefs. However, clinicians have long recognized cognitive dysfunction as on...
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by the loss of dopamine and the disruption of brain circuits (basal ganglia and cortex) that are responsible for normal cognitive and motor per...
Our decisions are governed by a balance between prospective instrumental goal-oriented and retrospective habitual learning strategies. This arbitration is relevant dimensionally across psychi...
We are nearing three decades of research on the neural circuits of Pavlovian fear conditioning. The advent of new techniques such as genetic and optogenetic manipulations have greatly advance...
Sensorimotor integration is important for the acquisition and performance of motor skills. Here,we show the emergence of neuroplastic changes in the interactions between the motor andsomatose...
Maturing neural circuits are dramatically shaped by the environment, but this timing varies across brain regions and plasticity declines with age. Focusing on cellular/molecular mechanisms un...
Schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder are all uniquely human conditions. Psychiatric conditions include alterations in several different and overlapping domains (NIMH RDoC). Each...
Given the challenges of replicating Parkinson’s disease in animal models, returning to models that are human-based and highly clinically characterized may provide the most successful pa...
The adolescent brain has been forged by evolution to have different features than those of a child or an adult, but it is not broken or defective. Phenomenal ability to adapt to environ...
Drug addiction is a chronically relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug use despite catastrophic personal consequences (e.g., loss of family, job) and even when the substance is n...
A key goal in psychiatry is to build new diagnostic, therapeutic and translational tools and capacity to reduce the impact of emerging mental disorders in young people on survival, distress,...
Schizophrenia (Sz) is a major mental disorder that affects ~1% of the population. Although traditional models of Sz focused on dopaminergic dysfunction, newer models increasingly implic...
There is a growing appreciation of the relationship between gut microbiota, and the host in maintaining homeostasis in health and predisposing to disease. Bacterial colonisation of the gut pl...
In this presentation, Arvid Carlsson, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 2000 for his discovery of the transmitter role of dopamine, will be interviewed by Elias Eriksson. The following aspec...
Impulse control disorders (ICDs), also known as behavioural addictions, are common in the general population and can have marked consequences. ICDs can also commonly occur with exposure...
Traditional models of basal ganglia disorders are grounded in the assumption that network dysfunction is driven by alterations in intrinsic excitability of striatal neurons. Recent work has c...
This talk will provide an overview of Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR) chemical imaging as a powerful and versatile method for obtaining information about CNS tissues. By combining imaging a...
In the adult central nervous system (CNS) small populations of neurons are formed in the adult olfactory bulb and dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. In the adult hippocampus, newly born neuron...
Innovation in Psychopharmacology is Dead. Long Live Innovation in Psychopharmacology! What’s going on in our field? Priorities of Big Pharma shifting away fr...
We routinely face decisions requiring evaluation and choice of different actions may or may not yield different types of rewards. These situations trigger competitive decision biases that ref...
Optogenetics or optophysiology is a rapidly growing technique used across an ever broadening array of research fields. Investigators now genetically modify many signalling pathway elements to...
Our goal - To Understand the Neurobiology of Emotions and Affect and Its Relevance to Psychiatric Disorders. This includes: Understanding basic mechanisms of affect, stre...
The NIH BRAIN initiative, informed by the report from the scientific community (BRAIN 2025) is underway. The major funded efforts at this time fit into 3 main categories; 1) defining the comp...
Basal forebrain cholinergic inputs to the cortex are known to contribute to attentional performance. A major focus of my laboratory has been to study the receptors mediating the effects of ac...
The idea of schizophrenia typically conjures up images of people who hear voices, see visions and have delusional beliefs. However, clinicians have long recognized cognitive dysfunction as on...
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by the loss of dopamine and the disruption of brain circuits (basal ganglia and cortex) that are responsible for normal cognitive and motor per...
Our decisions are governed by a balance between prospective instrumental goal-oriented and retrospective habitual learning strategies. This arbitration is relevant dimensionally across psychi...
We are nearing three decades of research on the neural circuits of Pavlovian fear conditioning. The advent of new techniques such as genetic and optogenetic manipulations have greatly advance...
Sensorimotor integration is important for the acquisition and performance of motor skills. Here,we show the emergence of neuroplastic changes in the interactions between the motor andsomatose...
Maturing neural circuits are dramatically shaped by the environment, but this timing varies across brain regions and plasticity declines with age. Focusing on cellular/molecular mechanisms un...
Schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder are all uniquely human conditions. Psychiatric conditions include alterations in several different and overlapping domains (NIMH RDoC). Each...
Given the challenges of replicating Parkinson’s disease in animal models, returning to models that are human-based and highly clinically characterized may provide the most successful pa...
The adolescent brain has been forged by evolution to have different features than those of a child or an adult, but it is not broken or defective. Phenomenal ability to adapt to environ...
Drug addiction is a chronically relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug use despite catastrophic personal consequences (e.g., loss of family, job) and even when the substance is n...
A key goal in psychiatry is to build new diagnostic, therapeutic and translational tools and capacity to reduce the impact of emerging mental disorders in young people on survival, distress,...
Schizophrenia (Sz) is a major mental disorder that affects ~1% of the population. Although traditional models of Sz focused on dopaminergic dysfunction, newer models increasingly implic...
There is a growing appreciation of the relationship between gut microbiota, and the host in maintaining homeostasis in health and predisposing to disease. Bacterial colonisation of the gut pl...
In this presentation, Arvid Carlsson, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 2000 for his discovery of the transmitter role of dopamine, will be interviewed by Elias Eriksson. The following aspec...
Impulse control disorders (ICDs), also known as behavioural addictions, are common in the general population and can have marked consequences. ICDs can also commonly occur with exposure...
Traditional models of basal ganglia disorders are grounded in the assumption that network dysfunction is driven by alterations in intrinsic excitability of striatal neurons. Recent work has c...
This talk will provide an overview of Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR) chemical imaging as a powerful and versatile method for obtaining information about CNS tissues. By combining imaging a...
In the adult central nervous system (CNS) small populations of neurons are formed in the adult olfactory bulb and dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. In the adult hippocampus, newly born neuron...
Innovation in Psychopharmacology is Dead. Long Live Innovation in Psychopharmacology! What’s going on in our field? Priorities of Big Pharma shifting away fr...
We routinely face decisions requiring evaluation and choice of different actions may or may not yield different types of rewards. These situations trigger competitive decision biases that ref...
Optogenetics or optophysiology is a rapidly growing technique used across an ever broadening array of research fields. Investigators now genetically modify many signalling pathway elements to...
Our goal - To Understand the Neurobiology of Emotions and Affect and Its Relevance to Psychiatric Disorders. This includes: Understanding basic mechanisms of affect, stre...
The NIH BRAIN initiative, informed by the report from the scientific community (BRAIN 2025) is underway. The major funded efforts at this time fit into 3 main categories; 1) defining the comp...