Ileana Morales

What areas of the brain are responsible for allowing us to ‘like’ and ‘want’ specific rewards like palatable foods or even drugs of abuse? I use optogenetic techniques to study how neuronal excitation or inhibition within specific cortical and subcortical brain areas can amplify hedonic ‘liking’ or motivational ‘wanting’.

Current Projects:

• Investigating how optogenetic stimulation of the Orbitofrontal Cortex and Insular Cortex can modify hedonic ‘liking’ of palatable solutions or aversive disgust to bitter tastants. Similarly, I seek to understand how neuronal excitation/inhibition within these areas increases ‘wanting’ for palatable food rewards.

• Determining how neuronal inhibition of the posterior ventral pallidum can generate intense disgust so that even normally ‘liked’ foods such as sucrose become ‘disliked’.

• Determining the role of endocannabinoid receptors within ventral pallidum, insula, and orbitofrontal cortex in hedonic ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’ of palatable foods.

• Exploring how stimulating the central amygdala can bias and enhance motivation for particular drugs of abuse such as cocaine and the potent synthetic opioid remifentanil.