My research interests are the neural and cellular substrates of learning and memory processes in animals. I am specifically interested in the distinct contributions the perirhinal and prefrontal cortices and the hippocampal formation make to recognition memory processing.

The work conducted by my research group has involved the use of a number of complementary behavioural, pharmacological and molecular techniques to examine the neural basis of recognition memory. In earlier experiments we  revealed the differential roles played by the perirhinal cortex, hippocampus and prefrontal cortex in specific components of recognition memory, namely familiairity discrimination (our ability to tell if a stimulus such as an object, is familiar or novel); object-in-place associaitive recognition memory (our ability to tell if an object has changed its location); recency recognition memory (our ability to judge how recently an object has been encountered) .

The research uses a multidisciplinary approach incorporating molecular and cellular techniques with behavioural analysis of recognition memory. Most recently my lab have used pharmacogenetics and optogenetics to manipulate specific neural pathways between defined brain regions during specific phases of memory to uncover the nature of information processing across brain wide memory circuits.