Understanding the mechanisms of goal-directed behavior is perhaps the outstanding scientific challenge of this century. As a result of developments in the analysis of rodent behavior in psychology and the technical breakthroughs in neuroscience, the time is now ripe, we believe, for a neurobiological assault on this problem.

Current research in the lab encompasses three areas:

1. The cellular and molecular mechanisms of synaptic transmission and plasticity in the basal ganglia, a set of brain structures critical for the generation and selection of voluntary behaviors: e.g. the contributions of dopamine, adenosine, and endocanabinoids to glutamatergic and GABAergic transmission and plasticity.

2. The analysis of cortico-basal ganglia networks using wired and wireless in vivo recording from awake, behaving rodents combined with a variety of permanent and reversible lesions and localized pharmacological treatments. We hope to elucidate the functions of neural circuits including striatum, pallidum, diencephalon, midbrain, and cortex.

3. The analysis of goal-directed behavior using quantitative assays including traditional operant procedures as well as video-based and automatic parsing of natural behaviors. We hope to understand the generation, selection, and elimination of goal-directed behaviors.

Our integrative approach to the study of goal-directed behavior is unique in several ways. Above all, we do not focus on any brain area, cell, or molecule, but on a general scientific problem. We study how different 'parts' of the brain work together to generate goal-directed behaviors. Also distinguishing our approach from the standard approach in neuroscience is our emphasis on the analysis of neural function at the level of the whole organism--i.e. behavior. Taking behavior seriously and treating it as the integrative form of neural activity, we are developing simple and useful tools for the quantitative analysis of goal-directed behaviors.