Welcome!
Dr. Catherine Cornwell is the principle investigator of the Laboratory in Behavioral Neuroscience lab through the Department of Psychology here at Syracuse University. Here we model neurodevelopmental disorders through the use of animal models- such as the effects of maternal separation in infant and adolescent mice. This is a model for the effects of early prenatal and neonatal adversity in humans, such as maternal prenatal distress and childhood neglect (foster care or orphanage care). By using later interventions such as environmental enrichment, we hope to determine non-pharmacological interventions that may ultimately mitigate the effects of these types of adversity.
A series of tasks we use include: The Open Field Test- a measurement of stress reactivity, The Sociability Test- a measurement of sociability or interaction of a test subject with members of their own species and we also utilize the Odor Preference Task- to measure communication levels between the species. We also intend to investigate the effects of our manipulations on brain development by analyzing cortical growth and changes in hippocampal growth.
Read more about our research here