Gary Aston-Jones, PhD

Gary Aston-Jones is the Murray and Charlotte Strongwater Endowed Chair in Neuroscience and Brain Health and the inaugural director of the Brain Health Institute at Rutgers University. He earned his PhD in neurobiology from the California Institute of Technology with James Olds and Floyd Bloom, and was a postdoctoral fellow with Bloom at the Salk Institute. Aston-Jones’s research focuses on the neural mechanisms of reward-motivated behavior, and examines the roles of ascending brain monoamine and peptide systems in addiction and cognitive processes. His studies use neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, and behavioral neuropharmacology techniques in anesthetized and behaving rats. Aston-Jones has directed a well-funded lab for more than 25 years, chaired the Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior study section at NIH, and received a MERIT award for his addiction research from NIDA. He has also published more than 240 journal and review articles.