What biological levels control how we process and manage the highly complex emotional world within and around us?
Our work centers on answering this question by studying how genes functionally influence brain circuitries critical for perception, cognition, and higher-order adaptive processing of emotionally-laden information/experiences. In addition, to better understand how these biologically-mediated behavioral processes develop to enable adaptive functions, we also study what maladaptive aspects of these developmental processes lead to the emergence of prevalent mood and affective disorders.
