My Research
My research interests broadly focus on social interactions and the underlying neurobiology of social interactions. At any given time, there are multiple research projects being carried out in my lab. Additionally, I am always open to new research ideas and collaborations.
Research Project 1: Examining social interactions in a rodent paradigm.
Over the past decade, interest in utilizing rodent paradigms to study social interacts has increased. Several labs have been instrumental in showing that rats, in particular, will help one another in the absence of a tangible reward, such as food. Over the past several years our lab has studied social interactions between rats using a helping paradigm. In particular, one rat is placed in a slightly distressing situation in which another rat is given the opportunity to release her from this situation. We have found that rats will indeed help one another, and rats that have previously been helped are slightly more likely to help than rats that have not been helped in the past. We are continuing these studies by updating our paradigm and examining various factors such as age and enriched environment. In future studies we will examine in utero effects on helping as well as neural pathways activated in our paradigm.
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Research Project 2: Studying implicit racial bias at a racially diverse college.
Implicit racial bias is bias against individuals of a certain race that occurs when the biased individual doesn't realize that they have a bias. In the late 1990's a computer task, the IAT (implicit association task), was designed to measure implicit bias held by individuals. To date, the IAT measures bias in many categories including race. Data from the IAT and studies using the IAT show that most people in countries colonized by Europeans hold bias against Black and Indigenous people. However, at Francis Marion University (FMU), we have found that our student population is unique in that our students tend to show less bias against Black people, regardless of their own race, which is contrary to the bias showed against Black people by the general population. My lab is working to identify factors that may contribute to the decreased implicit racial bias shown by FMU students. We hope to utilize any factors found that contribute to decreased racial bias against Black people to create an intervention program that will help people decrease their implicit racial bias. In future studies, we hope to use EEG to examine neural correlates associated with implicit racial bias.
Research Project 3: Effects of chorus on lung function.
In collaboration with Dr. Fran Coleman, Assistant Professor of Fine Arts, my lab is investigating the effects of Chorus 100 (taught by Dr. Coleman) on lung function. We hypothesize that students will have better lung function at the end of one semester of this course than they did at the beginning of the course. Following these pilot studies, we would like to investigate the ability of formal choral training and breathing to function as a therapeutic for individuals with reduced lung capacity due to conditions such as COPD and COVID-19.
Wrighten Lab Research Openings and Opportunities
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Please email me if you are interested in joining my research team.