Gretchen Gotthard, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
Behavioral Neuroscience
Haas 3rd Floor
[email protected]
484-664-3130
Dr. Gotthard's Website
Background
B.S., University of North Dakota, Ph.D., Kent State University
Dr. Gotthard teaches courses in psychology and neuroscience, and conducts research on learning and memory.
How are memories disrupted? And once disrupted, is memory loss permanent, or can “lost” memories be recovered? Our lab examines these questions of consolidation, reconsolidation, and retrieval using rats and human participants. Researchers in our rat lab use appetitively-motivated tasks where rats are trained to dig for buried sweet cereal rewards. We employ pharmacological agents (e.g., protein synthesis inhibitors and beta-adrenergic receptor antagonists) to disrupt (re)consolidation in our rat model. Researchers in our human memory lab employ a variety of appetitive tasks that measure not only declarative (conscious) memory (i.e., episodic and semantic memory), but also nondeclarative (nonconscious) memory for the task (e.g., physiological responses). The ultimate goal of our lab is to apply our work to aspects of treatment for memory-based forms of human psychopathology (e.g., depression and anxiety).
Recent Presentations
*Student Authors
- Kenney, L.* and Gotthard, G.H. (May, 2017). Effects of a reminder on cycloheximide-induced amnesia for an odor discrimination in rats. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Boston, MA.
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Gotthard, G.H., Aldrich, F.*, Balsamo, D.*, Fell, C.*, and Nash H.* (May, 2017). Tactile visuospatial distractor effective at disrupting declarative memory. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Boston, MA.
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Sahl, C.*, Gotthard, G. H., and Hess, L.* (May, 2015). Updating consolidation: Visuospatial distractor effectively disrupts reconsolidation of appetitive memory. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, New York City, NY.
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Glickman, B.* and Gotthard, G. H. (May 2014). “Updated” consolidation: Cycloheximide only effective for new sand maze location in rats. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, San Francisco, CA.
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Sharon, C.*, Frick, N.*, Miller-Sobel, J.* and Gotthard, G.H. (May 2014). Cycloheximide disrupts “linked” memory in novel animal model of PTSD. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, San Francisco, CA.
