In the Boettiger lab, our work focuses on improving our understanding of the neurobiology of substance use disorders (SUDs) by identifying and characterizing neurocognitive biomarkers and intermediate phenotypes. Recently, our work has approached this issue from two directions:
| 1. | Dissecting probable intermediate phenotypes, including: ♦ Immediate reward selection bias ♦ Enhanced habit learning ♦ Attentional bias toward reward-related cues |
| 2. | Identifying objective neurocognitive measures of addiction severity and therapeutic response. |
Through these approaches, we hope to realize more effective treatment and prevention strategies for substance use disorders (SUDs), which are the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. Our techniques include combining discrete cognitive tasks in human subjects with neuroimaging, pharmacology, physiological and hormonal measures, genetics, and epigenetics.