“Above all, don’t fear difficult moments. The best comes from them.”
-Rita Levi-montalcini
Laboratory of Neural systems, Decision science, learning & memory
As a part of the Mizumori Lab in the UW Psychology Department, I studied the neurobiology of decision making, learning & memory. Specifically, I investigated the role of a particular brain structure called the lateral dorsal tegmental nucleus (LDTg) in reward learning by testing rats on a spatial navigation task. My project was an pharmacological inactivation study of this brain structure. As a part of the Computational Neuroscience Training Program at UW, I also worked on a model of the LDTg using a method known as dynamic causal modeling (DCM). Being able to take both a behavioral and computational approach has been valuable both in my holistic understanding of the LDTg as well as the bigger picture of research.