- Animal models: Post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, minimal traumatic brain injury
- Neurobiology of learning and memory
- Behavioral neuroscience
- Neuropsychopharmacology
The laboratory focuses on translational studies of stress-related psychopathology, mainly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, with specific focus on factors affecting the response of individual test subjects to psychological stress. In order to elucidate the possible biological underpinnings of vulnerability vs. resilience to stress and avenues of treatment or prevention, we study gender-related, genetic, physiological, pharmacological, morphological and bio-molecular factors present before, during and after stress exposure. By means of classifying the study subject according to individual patterns of response (modeling clinical diagnostic criteria) and comparing the data from severely, minimally and partially affected animals, we are able to examine the association between behavior and biological parameters.