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Dr. Mary C. Olmstead Assistant Professor Department of Psychology, Queen's University Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6 Telephone: (613) 533-6208 FAX: (613) 533-2499 E-mail : olmstead@psyc.queensu.ca |
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Research 
On a theoretical level, I am interested in the interaction between motivation and cognition - or how rewarding stimuli influence learning. One behaviour that is clearly influenced by both motivational and cognitive factors is drug addiction. Indeed, addiction is characterized by a breakdown in the 'normal' balance between motivation and cognition. Furthermore, we know that drug addiction involves a progression from the controlled, volitional self-administration of drugs to uncontrolled, compulsive drug intake that occurs at the expense of other behaviours. This suggests that the psychological (and neural) processes that contribute to drug self-administration change as addiction develops. In my lab, therefore, we are studying how drug self-administration progresses from use to misuse to abuse using the rat model of intravenous drug self-administration. We have set up experiments that independently measure drug-seeking and drug-taking and have tested how conditioned cues and motivational states (i.e., withdrawal) influence each of these behaviours. We are now examining the neural adaptations that occur with chronic drug use and how these are manifested in behaviour. More details about specific projects...
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Publications For a list of publications, click here. To order publication reprints, contact my research assistant Megan Shram at 8mjs1@qlink.queensu.ca. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Teaching Psyc 205: Experimental Psychology: Learning Psyc 272: Brain and Behaviour II (teaching assistant Tracie Paine) 
Psyc 470: Advanced Topics in Behavioural Neuroscience: Neuropsychology | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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People in the Lab
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Important Links  Association of Women in Science and Engineering (AWISE)
Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology (CCN)
Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS)
Centre for Studies in Neuroscience (CNS), Queen's University
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Society for Neuroscience (SFN)
Women in Neuroscience (WIN)
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Copyright: Department of Psychology, Queen's University All rights reserved | Disclaimer. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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