Todor Gerdjikov

Associate Professor

Contact details:

Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour
University of Leicester
Maurice Shock Building (MSB)
University Road
Leicester, LE1 7RH
Tel: 0116 229 7190
E-mail: tvg3@le.ac.uk

Personal Statement:

The overall goal of my research is to characterize how the mesolimbic system of the brain encodes cognitive processes and implements motivated behavior. My focus is on exploring how normal functioning of these brain circuits is sustained and what alterations are associated with preclinical models of psychostimulant addiction and psychosis. For example, we recently carried out neurophysiological studies aimed at understanding the brain abnormalities underlying the rat phencyclidine model of schizophrenia. I am further interested in fundamental aspects of attention and motivation which may be compromised in these models.  We also use viral-based circuit tracing approaches using transgenic rats to characterize how the mesolimbic system underlies attentional processes including vigilance and reward prediction error.

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