Our research focuses on aminergic and hypocretinergic modulation of arousal-related processes including motivated behavior, addiction, stress and sleep/wake function.

We use a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the involvement of hypocretins in reward and addiction processes. Techniques include, electrophysiological recordings of sleep/wake behavior, self-administration of drugs of abuse, fast-scan cyclic voltammetry in anesthetized and freely moving animals, anterograde and retrograde tracing, and single and multi-unit recordings in behaving animals.