Alex defended his PhD in the Department of Psychology's Neuroscience and Behavior program at UT in September, 2019. His dissertation work probed the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in experiential resilience/susceptibility to acute social defeat. Specifically, he demonstrated that dominant Syrian hamsters (who develop a resistance to the effects of acute social defeat) more readily recruit a stress-reducing neural circuit during acutely traumatic stress which projects from the vmPFC to the serotonin-producing, dorsal raphe nucleus. Alex also found that following stress-resistant "training", the vmPFCs of dominant hamsters appear protected from stress-induced neuroinflammation and cellular and synaptic degeneration, which may also deleteriously impede vmPFC function in more vulnerable populations during stress. While at UT, Alex also led collaborative projects with Dr. Rebecca Prosser's laboratory to investigate how alcohol or tobacco can alter resilience to traumatic stress and teamed up with Dr. Todd Freeberg to study how anthropogenic noise alters foraging and agonistic behavior in wild avian populations of East Tennessee. Currently a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Mike Saddoris's laboratory at The University of Colorado, Boulder, Alex is investigating how learned stress resilience alters cocaine self-administration.
Brooke received her PhD in Biological Psychology in 2018. Quite prolific during her tenure at UT, Brooke authored an average of 2 papers per year, with 5 first authored publications and another upcoming. Brooke's dissertation work focused on the neural circuitry of stress resilience where she identified a role of an infralimbic cortex to BLA circuit in resistance to conditioned defeat using tract-tracing and chemogenetic tools. Brooke was also involved in multiple collaborative projects with the laboratories of Drs. Rebecca Prosser, Subimal Datta, and Shawn Campagna where she and others probed the roles of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in stress and memory, and also characterized and compared the brain metabolites from stress resilient and vulnerable populations in both select mice and hamster strains. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Fred Helmstetter's laboratory at The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Catie received her PhD in Biological Psychology in 2016. Her dissertation work focused on the neural mechanisms controlling resiliency to social stress. Specifically, she utilized the lab's dominant/subordinate model in Syrian Hamsters to identify the role of testosterone and androgen receptors in modulating resistance to social stress. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Dalton State College.
Lauren Bader, Ph.D.
Lauren received her MS in Biological Psychology in 2013. Her research focused on the involvement of 5-HT1A receptors in the development of conditioned defeat behavior and fear memories. She received her PhD student at the University of Tennessee in the Child and Family Studies Department and is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan, Department of Psychology.
Katie Morrison, Ph.D.
Katie received her PhD in Biological Psychology in 2012. Her dissertation focused on the mechanisms by which dominance status leads to conditioned defeat resiliency. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Tracy Bale's lab at the University of Maryland.
Marquinta Harvey, M.S.
Marquinta received her MS degree in Biological Psychology in 2011. Her research focused on the involvement of 5-HT2C receptors on the acquisition and expression of conditioned defeat.
Former Undergraduate Researchers
Elena Bagatelas
Elena majored in Neuroscience with a minor in Psychology. She is interested in the physiological effects of drugs on the brain, as well as neurological disorders that stem from drug use. In addition to the Cooper Lab, she is an intern at the Cole Neuroscience Center.
Kimberly Bress
Kim majored in Neuroscience and Mental Health through the College Scholars Program. She is interested in both the neurophysiological and psychological underpinnings of disorders such as PostTraumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety, and depression. Kim is currently involved with a neural circuitry experiment that is looking at the connection between the ventral medial prefrontal cortex and basolateral amygdala, as well as the ventral hippocampus.
Abigail Barnes
Abigail Barnes received a BA in Neuroscience and a BA in Psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in December 2014. As a Research Technician in our lab, her research focused on the relationship between social status and responses to non-social stressors.
Cody Burleson
Cody Burleson received a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry, Cellular & Molecular Biology and in Psychology, with a minor in Chemistry, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in May 2013. As a Research Technician in our lab, his research focused on the effects of social play deprivation during development on susceptibility to social defeat in adulthood and the circuitry involved.
Some of our former undergraduates (and where they are now) Nate Graham Hanna Jang Samuel Adler (PA program at Vanderbilt University) Emily McMahon Sahba Seddighi (MPhil program in Epidemiology at University of Cambridge) Lauren Debusk Mohan Muvvala (DO program at Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine at New Mexico State University) Robert Pederson (Biotechnology MS program at Johns Hopkins University) Nathan Donnell (Creighton University School of Medicine) Ellen Ford (Research Technician at Stanford University School of Medicine) Joseph Carboni Molly Sullivan (University of Kentucky College of Medicine) Sonya Gross (Psychological and Brain Sciences PhD program at the University of California in Santa Barbara) Jordan Lakin (DO program at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine) Danielle Gerhard (Biological Psychology PhD program at Yale University) Colleen McLaughin (Neurobiology PhD program at Case Western Reserve University) Travis Goode (Biological Psychology PhD program in Texas A&M University) Louden Wright (Veterinary School at the UT College of Veterinary Medicine) Avery Nolan (MD program at East Tennessee State University College of Medicine) Daniel Curry (Neuroscience PhD program at Emory University) Cody Swallows (MD/PhD program at University of Tennessee Health Science Center) Jason Schumer (Neurobiology PhD program at University of Chicago)