Gregory O. Hjelmstad

Staff Research Investigator, Gallo Center
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Neurology, UCSF
Associate Member, UCSF/UCB Joint Bioengineering Program
Phone: (510) 985-3927
Email: gregh@gallo.ucsf.edu

Research

Dr. Hjelmstad's research is focused on understanding the neural circuits that underlie motivation and goal-directed behavior, and how these circuits are altered with drug addiction. The ventral tegmental area and the nucleus accumbens are two brain regions that have been shown to be critically involved in the rewarding properties of many drugs of abuse. Dr. Hjelmstad is using a combination of fluorescent tracing, electrophysiology, optogenetics, and histology to determine the connectivity and properties of synaptic transmission on specific subpopulations of neurons in these regions.

Publications

Gregory O. Hjelmstad's publications