Psychology > Faculty > Robert Ranaldio
Robert Ranaldi, PhD
Basic Information
Title: Professor
Area: Behavioral Neuroscience
PhD: Queen’s University (Canada)
Email: robert.ranaldi@qc.cuny.edu
Office: Remsen 206G
Office Phone: 718-997-3553
Lab: 259 Razran Building
Lab Phone: 718-997-3553
Website: Ranaldi Lab
Professional Activities
Society Memberships:
- The Society for Neuroscience
- Association for Behavior Analysis
- Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society
- The International Brain Research Organization
Research Description
Understanding the neural and environmental mechanisms of reward-related learning is central to understanding behavior in general and crucial to understanding psychopathologies like addiction, pathological impulsivity and depression. Thus, my research is aimed at delineating the environmental and neural mechanisms underlying reward-related learning, motivation and drug addiction. In my laboratory, we focus on (1) the neural and environmental mechanisms whereby goal-directed behavior is acquired and expressed and (2) the neural and environmental mechanisms underlying the acquisition, maintenance and reinstatement of drug-taking and drug-seeking. Several neural pathways have been implicated in reward-related learning and we currently are engaged in developing neural models that help us understand the neural plasticity occurring in specific regions of these pathways as a function of reward-related learning. Currently, the behavioral paradigms that we use include operant and classical conditioning (e.g., self-administration of drug or food) and the neuroscience techniques include psychopharmacology, neuropsychopharmacology and immunohistochemistry.
Selected Publications
- Ewing, S.T., Dorcely, C., Maida, R., Paker, G., Schelbaum, E. and Ranaldi, R. (2021). Low-dose polypharmacology targeting dopamine D1 and D3 receptors reduces cue-induced relapse to heroin seeking in rats. Addiction Biology. DOI: 10.1111/adb.12988
- Nisanov, R., Schelbaum, E., Morris, D. and Ranaldi, R. (2020). CaMKII antagonism in the ventral tegmental area impairs acquisition of conditioned approach learning in rats. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 175, November 2020, 107299.
- Galaj, E., Barrera, E., Morris D., Mao Y.-Y. and Ranaldi, R. (2020). Aberrations in incentive learning and responding to heroin in male rats after adolescent or adult chronic binge-like alcohol exposure. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 44(6) 1214-1223.
- Galaj, E., Barrera, E. and Ranaldi, R. (2020). Therapeutic efficacy of environmental enrichment for substance use disorders. Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, 188: 172829.