Research Interests
​Dr. McCane’s research integrates work from rodent and non-human primate models to understand how changes in adolescence promote psychopathology. In particular, her lab studies models of alcohol use disorder and the consequences of alcohol exposure in adolescence on development and aging.
Research Projects
How do neural circuits encode motivated behaviors differently in adolescents and adults?
Adolescence is characterized by increased vulnerability to seek out rewarding stimuli, and several mental illnesses with aberrant motivational processes emerge during this time. This project seeks to characterize how neural networks in adults and adolescents differentially guide motivated behaviors, and the relationship between these differences and susceptibility to disorders characterized by motivational deficits, such as addiction.
What is the relationship between computational strategy and addiction vulnerability?
Development of alcohol use disorder is strongly associated with initiation of drinking during adolescence, suggesting adolescent alcohol exposure influences development of reward-seeking processes.
This project investigates the influence of adolescent alcohol on engagement of stimulus-driven or goal-directed systems during motivated responding in order to determine whether such differences play a causal role in addiction vulnerability.
Why are some animals resilient and others vulnerable to addiction?
Despite the same experience, adolescent alcohol drinking, animals can become either resilient or vulnerable to alcohol misuse. This project takes a systems neuroscience approach to identify neural circuits that delineate future heavy and non-heavy alcohol drinkers.
How do developmental changes promote alcohol misuse?
An adolescent-like behavioral phenotype is observed in individuals at risk for alcohol use disorder, and is hypothesized to reflect perturbations of normal development in these individuals. This project seeks to determine whether heavy alcohol drinking emerges as a result of developmental perturbations in select neural circuits.
