By Todd Taylor
*These images/footage were taken prior to national guidelines of face coverings and physical distancing.
Shelby Blaes, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of neuroscience, is the latest investigator to be featured in MBI Rising Stars, a video series highlighting up-and-coming neuroscience researchers at the University of Florida.
Blaes works in the laboratories of mentors Barry Setlow, Ph.D, and Jennifer Bizon, Ph.D., with a research focus of understanding the neurobiology of substance use disorders, specifically how they affect risky decision making, to guide in the development of better therapeutic techniques.
Many patients with substance use disorders exhibit maladaptive decision making, which can lead to relapse. Blaes’ research attempts to determine which brain regions are important in these processes and how these regions regulate decision making. The goal is to determine how brain regions act during decision making and then modulate these areas to reduce the problematic behaviors.
Blaes is an MBI graduate fellowship winner and served as the 2019 North Central Florida Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience Conference chair.