Dopamine within the ventral striatum is critical in mediating positive reinforcement or pleasure for both natural rewards such as food and also substances of abuse such as cocaine. However, the functional role of specific striatal neuronal populations in decoding these signals is still unclear. Currently, I am collaborating with the Costa lab to better understand the spatiotemporal dynamic activity of ventral striatal spiny projection neurons during operant self-paced reinforced and motivation-dependent behaviors. I am also interested in studying how drug exposure changes this organization to produce abnormal behavior.