Britton Barbee Email and Phone Number

Postdoctoral fellow on the Interdisciplinary T32 Postdoctoral Training in Developmental Psychobiology, Psychopathology and Behavior training grant working with Dr. Amanda Law examining molecular- and circuit-level contributions to neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric diseases.

My dissertation work focused on the role of phosphoinositide 3-kinase in cocaine-related behaviors, with a particular interest in negative affect in cocaine abstinence. I have expertise in rodent assays of anxiety-like and compulsive-like behaviors, as well as assessment of decision-making strategies. I routinely used viral-mediated gene silencing and chemogenetic manipulation strategies alongside confocal imaging and dendritic spine reconstruction via Imaris to address my research questions. Throughout my time as a graduate student, I was heavily involved in the Molecular and Systems Pharmacology graduate program, and was awarded the prestigious Edward T. Morgan Award for Outstanding Student Service and Leadership in recognition of my efforts. My complete publication list can be found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/britton.barbee.2/bibliography/public/.

I completed an honors thesis through the Texas A&M University Undergraduate Research Scholars program, resulting in a published thesis (Barbee 2019) and peer-reviewed, co-authored publication (Lu et. al, 2021, eNeuro). As part of this program, scholars were awarded $300 to facilitate thesis completion and presentation opportunities. I also assisted our postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Tengfei Ma, with his project examining how excessive alcohol consumption affected synaptic plasticity at inputs into the dorsomedial striatum. This project culminated in my first co-authored, peer-reviewed publication (Ma et al., 2017, Neuropharmacology) - the first undergraduate in the lab to be a co-author. Additionally, as an undergraduate researcher and interim lab manager, I maintained our colony of 18 transgenic mouse lines and Long-Evans rat lines. As the senior undergraduate in the lab, I was also responsible for the recruitment and training of other undergraduate students.

I directly oversaw the interviewing and hiring, scheduling, and duties of the children's ministry aides (>50 employees). I was also responsible for the safety and well-being of children (>100 children) ranging in age from newborns to kindergarten. I also facilitated communication between employees, ministry volunteers, and parents. I served as a professional reference for several employees.