Michael Saddoris, PhD

Michael Saddoris is an assistant professor in the department of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Saddoris’s work investigates how neural circuits differentially contribute to motivated behavior, and how those circuits are disrupted following experience with drugs of abuse. The main goals of his work are to understand the patterns of neural activity in the limbic system, especially in the nucleus accumbens and amygdala, and how these patterns are modulated by the phasic signaling dynamics of dopamine. These techniques are used in conjunction with behavioral tasks in order to provide novel insights into diseases learning, motivation, decision-making, and addiction disorders.