Samantha J. Hurh, PhD
MA in Psychology, University of Illinois Chicago
BS in Neuroscience, University of Illinois Chicago
Sam is a PhD candidate in the Behavioral Neuroscience program at UIC where she also earned her BS in Neuroscience & MA in Psychology (2021). Her work aims to determine whether the encoding of taste stimuli by VTA dopamine neurons is flexible using in vivo fiber photometry and a conditioned taste aversion paradigm. Furthermore, her aim is to understand the changes in synaptic weights on VTA dopamine neurons during the extinction of a conditioned taste aversion.