Studies testing the role and effect of environmental factors (such as social stress) on the development and neurobiology of aggressive behavior in an animal model. The effects of stress exposure are studied at different developmental periods, such as early postnatal and puberty. Supporting studies also include in vitro with cultures of neural progenitors (neural stem cells). These experiments are used to develop hypotheses that can be tested with human subjects originating from the Psy 301 pool.

Duties:

Conducting experiments, animal handling, managing data from Psy 301 subject pools, behavioral observations, running cultures of neural progenitors, running hormone assays, as well as preparation, labeling and analysis of brain sections and cultivated neural progenitors.