Catalin V. Buhusi

Biography

Welcome to TIMELAB! My students investigate the integrative neuroscience of timekeeping and decision making, the role of various brain regions (e.g., frontal cortex) in delaying gratification and impulse behavior, the effect of acute and chronic stress on decision making, gene-environment interactions as harbingers of mental disease, and the computational mechanisms of flexible behavior. TIMELAB has been funded continuously since 2001 by the National Institutes of Health (e.g., National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute on Aging), National Science Foundation, and private foundations (e.g., Brain & behavior Research Foundation, Neurobiology of Addiction Research Center etc). TIMELAB welcomes students from various backgrounds and walks of life – including international students -- sharing a passion for understanding how behavior emerges from brain activity, and how the environment – including distractors and stress – affects the brain and leads to mental disorders. TIMELAB students have obtained positions in faculty, researchers, medical, and government positions in Brazil, United Arab Emirates, and United States. I was an international student myself, so I have personally dealt with the barriers and cultural shift experienced by students from underrepresented groups. I received a MEng in Computer Engineering from Technical University of Iasi, Romania, and moved to United States in 1995 to study at Duke University, USA, where I received a PhD in Experimental Psychology in 1999. After a postdoc in neuroscience, and after receiving my first external grant in 2001, I received a Research Assistant Professor position at Duke University, to study the neurobiology of attentional processing of time. In 2006, I accepted an Associate Professor position in the Dept. of Neurosciences at Medical University of South Carolina to study genetic models of neuropsychiatric disorders in which timekeeping is disregulated, and the genetic regulation of brain circuits involved in time perception. In 2012 I moved to Utah State University where I am currently a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience in the USTAR BioInnovations Center, studying the neurobiology of timing, memory, emotion, learning, attention, and decision making.