Cognition and Addiction Biopsychology Lab
in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at UNC-Chapel Hill
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. First, we are carefully dissecting probable intermediate phenotypes, including: immediate reward selection bias, enhanced habit learning, and attentional bias toward reward-related cues. Secondly, we are identifying objective neurocognitive measures of addiction severity and therapeutic response. Through these approaches, we hope to realize more effective treatment and prevention strategies for 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.
