Dr Ian Johnston BSc (Hons), PhD
		Position: Lecturer Office: Rm 454, Christopher Brennan Building (A18) Ph: +61 2 9351 4353 Fax: +61 2 9036 5223 Email: ianj@psych.usyd.edu.au Postal Address: School of Psychology Mungo MacCallum Building (A17) The University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia

 

Research Interests:

My research interests fall into two broad categories.

The first is Psychoneuroimmunology, or the study of interactions between the immune system and the brain. While it has been known for sometime that the central nervous system (CNS) exerts considerable control over the function of the immune response, more recent work has shown that the immune system also modulates the function of the CNS, and this translates into changes in behaviour, mood, perception and cognitive abilities. My particular research interests in this area are focused on:

• The role of the immune system in modulating the rewarding and analgesic effects of opioid drugs (e.g., morphine and heroin) in rodent models of drug reward and tactile sensitivity.
• The role of the immune system in mediating the pain sensory, behavioural, cognitive and affective disorders that arise during and after experience with persistent pain.

The second is instrumental learning, or how it is that both humans and non-human animals learn about causal relations between their behaviours and the consequences that follow. My particular research interests in this area are focused on:

• The role of causal learning in drug abuse,
• Social learning of instrumental responses and learned helplessness,
• The use of contextual cues in learning in ambiguous situations.

Recent Publications:

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