Rob Rozeske
Instructor, Department of Biology
Ph.D. in Psychology & Neuroscience, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO
E-mail - rozeske@stolaf.edu
Phone - 507-786-3984
Office - Regents Hall 432
systems neuroscience, stress resilience, animal behavior, addiction
Classes - Topics: Synapses to Behavior
Research - Many individuals will likely experience a traumatic or stressful event during the course of their lifetime. Events such as natural disasters, physical assault, exposure to a war zone, and car accidents are examples of acute events that can have a profound impact on the psychological well-being of the individual. Moreover, these experiential factors can potentially lead to the development of a number of psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and addiction. However, not all individuals react similarly to these traumatic events. This variability of individual reactions to stressful events has lead to an interest in the field of resilience or stress resistance.
I am interested what psychological factors during a stressful experience can protect an organism from the typical behavioral consequences of a stress experience. Moreover, I am interested in dissecting the neural circuits involved in stress resistance. Aversive experiences typically activate limbic structures in the brain; this activation of limbic structures is thought to be responsible for the development of what have been broadly termed anxiety- and depression-like behaviors. Recent evidence suggests that the medial prefrontal cortex is a critical structure involved in mitigating the neurochemical and behavioral consequences of stress by inhibiting stress-induced activation of limbic circuits. Determining what psychological factors during stress can preferentially activate the medial prefrontal cortex, and subsequently dampen limbic structure activation during stress, is a goal of my future research.