Department Celebrates Several Recent Awards
Congratulations to three Behavioral & Systems Neuroscience Graduate Researchers for recently awarded National Research Service Awards (NRSAs):
- Sophia Weber: “The role of nucleus accumbens dopamine in incubation of cocaine craving”
- Landon Bayless-Edwards: "Intracellular signaling mechanisms underlying opioid modulation of pain"
- Amy Chan: “Role of nucleus accumbens core in ethanol reward and binge-like drinking: Focus on sex as a biological variable”
Congratulations also to Behavioral & Systems Neuroscience Graduate Researcher Jereme Wingert for recently being awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program provides 3 years of support for PhD students and is awarded annually to about 2500 trainees across all fields of scientific research in the United States.
Behavioral Neuroscience also celebrates the renewal of the department's long running NIA T32 Training Grant, Dr. Marina Wolf's R01 titled "Glutamate receptor plasticity underlying incubation of methamphetamine craving," via NIDA, and Dr. Bita Moghaddam's newly awarded R21 titled "Long term consequences of adolescent alcohol use on behavioral inhibition," via NIAAA.
Department Faculty, Drs. Deb Finn and Mary Heinricher, were also recently awarded the OHSU 2023 Excellence in Education Award and the OHSU 2023 John A. Resko Faculty Excellence in Research and Mentoring Award, respectively. Congratulations!
Department of Behavioral Neuroscience (BEHN)
BEHN Chair
Welcome message
Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience Program (BSN) Director
Welcome message
A message from the BEHN Chair
Welcome to the Department of Behavioral Neuroscience. We are committed to maintaining and enhancing excellence in research and education on the neurobiology of addiction, other mental health disorders, and cognition. We strive for an inclusive and accountable research and learning environment that best serves the people of Oregon and beyond. Ours is one of few Behavioral Neuroscience departments in the country and our focus on the neuroscience of healthy and dysregulated behavior is a unique aspect of our research mission.
Our specific goals reflect a long-standing commitment to the following missions: (a) conducting high-quality research that enhances our understanding of brain-behavior relationships and improves human health and well-being; (b) educating the next generation of behavioral and systems neuroscientists and physician scientists; and (c) providing community service that informs the public about brain-behavior relationships. Research conducted by our faculty and trainees uses a wide range of techniques and cuts across several neurodevelopmental stages, as well as levels of analysis that range from the study of molecular processes to the study of complex behavior. Emphasis is placed on understanding the independent and interacting roles of genetic regulation, neural circuits, and environmental factors in determining behavior, with the long-term goal of creating new knowledge that will aid in the prevention, detection and treatment of disorders and diseases of the nervous system impacting motivation, mood and cognition.
Our mission is strengthened by collaborations across our campus and other institutions. Our faculty are leaders in their fields with broad collective knowledge. We train our graduate students in the Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience graduate program and our Postdoctoral Scholars to perform cutting-edge research, communicate their findings to the scientific and lay communities and relate their findings to real world problems.
As department chair, I am proud that our research has made significant contributions to the understanding of genetic and epigenetic factors and brain mechanisms impacting addiction, disorders of memory and cognition, and other neuropsychiatric conditions.
Tamara J. Phillips, Ph.D.
Chair and Ruth G. Matarazzo Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience