Welcome to the Britt Lab

The Britt Lab investigates neural circuits that regulate basic psychological processes such as motivation and reinforcement learning.

 

We want to uncover the neurobiological mechanims that underlie compulsive thoughts and actions.  We are also interested in the neurobiological underpinnings of pleasure. Knowledge gained from these research endeavours will help efforts to resolve the pathophysiology of a variety of human psychiatric disorders, such as addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and Tourette's syndrome.                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Jonathan Britt, Ph.D.

 

Britt Lab Home Page

Britt Lab for Neural Circuits, Motivation, and Reinforcement Learning

Our approach to uncovering the neurobiological processes that motivate and direct volitional behaviour is to combine state of the art methodologies (such as intracranial viral-mediated gene delivery, optogenetics, and calcium imaging) with simple rodent behavioural paradigms (such as Pavlovian and operant conditioning).  

Our current efforts are largely focused on understanding the physiology and function of the nucleus accumbens, a forebrain structure that integrates contextual, emotional, and motivational cues to initiate and coordinate reward seeking behaviour.

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