Heidi Meyer
My research questions are driven by a fascination with the the uniqueness of the adolescent period, as more than a linear step in a progression from childhood to adulthood. My research aims to address how behavioral patterns are learned based on an individual’s past experience and current environment (including the ‘environment’ of adolescence). I recieved a B.S. in Neuroscience and psychology from the University of California Santa Cruz. I then completed my PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience, under the mentorship of Dr. David Bucci at Dartmouth College, studying the development (across adolescence) of behavioral inhibition in the face of appetitive cues. I carried out a postdoc at Weill Cornell Medicine, working with Dr. Francis Lee, where my research was focused in the domain of fear and anxiety, exploring how adolescents learn to discriminate safety from potential danger, and how exposure to explicit safety signals may serve as a mechanism for reducing fear.
In January 2022 Meyer lab opened at Boston University in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and Center for Systems Neuroscience. We study learning, behavior and affective neurodevelopment during adolescence, focusing on interneuron tuning of prefrontal-based neural circuits