Lauren Faget, Ph.D.

Summary: My research aims to identify and characterize the cell types and brain circuits that drive reward and motivated behaviors. I’m particularly interested in how these pathways are affected in neuropsychiatric disorders like drug addiction, depression, and schizophrenia, which often involve symptoms related to reward deficits such as avolition, anhedonia, negative affective states, and compulsive behaviors. My lab focuses on understanding the adaptations and dysregulations within these brain reward pathways in the context of these disorders.

Minimum Classes: N/A

Projects: Summer projects could focus on molecular changes in some brain cells during the development of drug addiction or explore in vivo cellular activity and synaptic connectivity changes using mouse models. Techniques used in the lab include: mouse behavioral assays, viral-mediated gene transfer, genetically-modified mice, optogenetics for in vivo neuronal manipulation, fiber photometry for in vivo calcium imaging, MATLAB and Python coding for big data analysis, histology, in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry and microscopy