Justin M. Moscarello

This study investigates how response-produced safety signals influence goal-directed and habitual avoidance behaviors in rats, showing sex differences in their sensitivity to feedback devaluation.

This study shows acute stress enhances signaled active avoidance in female rats but not males, with males showing resistance to extinction and similar fear learning to females.

This study investigates the role of the ventral hippocampus in inter-trial responses during signaled active avoidance in rats, finding that its inactivation reduces these responses while leaving avoidance behavior unaffected.

This study shows that the BNST mediates proactive defensive behavior in rats by modulating avoidance responses through chemogenetic activation or inhibition.

This paper develops a wireless platform combining AI for high-throughput behavioral analysis with dual-channel optogenetics to study brain dynamics in freely behaving rats.

This study shows that ventral hippocampus inactivation removes context-dependence in two-way signaled avoidance behavior in male rats, while dorsal hippocampus inactivation has no effect.