Principal Investigator

Vanessa Troiani, PhD

vtroiani@geisinger.edu

The goal of my research is to understand the behavioral and genetic contributions to atypical motivational circuitry in the brain and how this manifests in different psychiatric disorders. I study the structure and function of brain regions involved in motivated attention, including reward-processing structures like the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and orbitofrontal cortex. My scientific worldview is inherently multidisciplinary, as I am interested in how atypical motivation can manifest in multiple disorders, from autism to obesity to addiction. I use a variety of techniques in this work, including psychophysics, eye tracking, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging, and exploring clinical phenotypes using the electronic health record and questionnaires.