Brian Castelluccio '12 Attends Society For Nueroscience Conference In D.C.: In His Own Words



Brian Castelluccio '12

I went to the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. to share my research and hear about cutting edge work happening in the neuroscience community. Many students and faculty from Trinity attend this conference every year, and this year was no exception. The conference hosted 32,000 people from around the world sharing research across many disciplines of neuroscience. Thousands of scientists presented research posters, seminars, and lectures over the course of five days. I presented my work on impulsivity in cocaine users at one of the poster sessions. At the Institute of Living's Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center, I use functional MRI to study neural activity associated with inhibitory control and error monitoring in current cocaine users, former cocaine users, and healthy subjects. I have found that former cocaine users show particular patterns of overactivation in certain brain regions in response to commission of errors in a simple behavior task. One hypothesis is that these patterns reflect cognitive strategies that allow the former users to achieve and maintain abstinence. This research continues at the Olin Center, as do other projects investigating substance abuse and impulsivity.