Diversity in Life Sciences

Dr. Burghardt’s research is focused on understanding abnormalities in the neural circuits that underlie different psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and anorexia nervosa. Her lab uses behavioral neuroscience to model features of these disorders in rodents and modern molecular tools to identify changes in relevant brain regions, such as the amygdala and hippocampus. The emotional and cognitive symptoms that are modeled include changes in fear learning, enhanced social avoidance behavior, increased anxiety-like behavior, and impaired cognitive flexibility. There are currently four main ongoing projects in her lab.