Cornell Research Cornell.edu

Expertise
Systems neuroscience; reward; motivated behavior; depression; optogenetics; imaging; neurophysiology

Current Research Interest
Neural circuitry underlying complex cognition and behavior, with a focus on circuits mediating reward, motivation, and learning and memory; monitoring and decoding of neural activity with optical control of genetically and topologically defined circuit elements; normal circuit function and dysfunction in psychiatric disease models, particularly depression; the prefrontal cortex and its communication with neuromodulatory and limbic regions

Distinction
NIH Director's New Innovator Award
Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship
Whitehall Research Grant
New York Stem Cell Foundation, Robertson Neuroscience Investigator

Selected Publications
Warden, Melissa R., Jessica A. Cardin, and Karl Deisseroth. "Optical Neural Interfaces." Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering 16 (2014): 103–129.

Warden, Melissa R., Aslihan Selimbeyoglu, Julie J. Mirzabekov, Maisie Lo, Kimberly R. Thompson, Sung-Yon Kim, Avishek Adhikari, Kay M. Tye, Loren M. Frank, and Karl Deisseroth. "A Prefrontal Cortex–Brainstem Neuronal Projection That Controls Response to Behavioural Challenge." Nature 492, no. 7429 (2012): 428–432.

Cornell Research Website Article
Unraveling the Brain's Mysteries