On 28th November OxTalks will move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events' (full details are available on the Staff Gateway).
There will be an OxTalks freeze beginning on Friday 14th November. This means you will need to publish any of your known events to OxTalks by then as there will be no facility to publish or edit events in that fortnight. During the freeze, all events will be migrated to the new Oxford Events site. It will still be possible to view events on OxTalks during this time.
If you have any questions, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Compulsive behavior is a hallmark of substance use disorder and other addictive disorders. My lab models compulsive behavior in mice using a reinforcement training paradigm (RI60) that leads to habitual and punishment-resistant reward-seeking. By using fiber photometry and optogenetics to measure and manipulate dopamine signals in vivo as compulsive behavior emerges, we are revealing how dopamine contributes to this addiction-relevant process. I will present published and unpublished work identifying the specific spatiotemporal features of dopamine signaling that drive compulsion, including evidence that adolescent stress – an important risk factor for addiction – reshapes key features of dopamine engagement in compulsion. These findings highlight the synaptic- and circuit-level mechanisms by which developmental experiences alter vulnerability to addiction and suggest new avenues for personalized treatment strategies.
