Veronica Lee Flores
Website: Veronica Flores | Furman University
Education
May 2019 PhD, Psychology, Program in Brain, Body and Behavior, Brandeis University, Waltham MA
May 2013 MS, Neuroscience, Brandeis University, Waltham MA
June 2009 BS, Psychology- Concentration in Behavioral Neuroscience, UC San Diego, La Jolla CA
Contact Info
vlflores@brandeis.edu
781-736-3221
Research interests
Most of us have had the unfortunate experience of developing food poisoning at some point in our lives which (usually) leads us to reject that food at a later date. In the laboratory, we call this Conditioned Taste Aversion (CTA).
Consider for example, that you develop food poisoning from your favorite restaurant. It is likely that you will still return to this restaurant because you've formed safe associations there; in Psychology, this type of association is called Latent Inhibition. But what if you developed food poisoning thefirst timeyou ate at that specific restaurant? Chances would be slim that you'd be going back or recommending any friends....
This is a widely studied example where experience with the same stimulus can robustly alter association learning. However, our experiences with food are not simply classified into either "aversive or favorites". Most of our experiences fall somewhere in between. What we might not often consider is how our previous experiences with taste - those that are unremarkable - influence how we make future decisions and associations about novel tastes.
In my research within the Katz lab I use my background in Psychology and Neuroscience to understand how incidental experiences with taste changes the way an animal processes new taste associations. My work investigates a newly described phenomenon of chemosensory learning, and the neurobiological underpinnings thereof, using a rodent model.
My first project (Flores et al. 2016) in the lab was a behavioral exploration of incidental experience. I exposed rats to salty and sour tastes over 3 days and then gave them an aversion towards novel sucrose. Rats exposed to salty and sour tastes developed a stronger aversion to sucrose than rats exposed to water alone. This learning scaled with the number of tastes received. It also got stronger if they were exposed to the tastes for 3 vs. 2 days. The same phenomenon was replicated whether I conditioned rats via bottle or intra-oral cannula. These results represent a relatively unexplored phenomenon where even previous experiences where no obvious association learning took place can influence the way an animal learns about a new taste.
My current research implements an in-depth, multi-experiment investigation of the neural circuitry involved in this learning phenomenon using behavior, optogenetics, in-vivo electrophysiology and markers of immediate early genes (cFos). I have begun to explore how the Gustatory cortex (GC), primary taste cortex, is both involved and impacted by innocuous experience. My research questions include: Does taste pre-exposure impact neural activity before and after aversion learning? What is the causal role of Gustatory Cortex in integrating this experience into future learning? If so, what does that change look like in terms of firing rate plasticity and the neural dynamics of taste, specifically palatability, processing.
As someone who has received extensive training in Psychology & Neuroscience, I am in a unique position where I can help to form bridges between fields - my research aims to understand the impact of innocuous experience on later learning and its underlying neural mechanisms with the intention to develop animal learning models that are more representative of the naturalistic diverse human experience with food and taste.
Katz Lab Publications
Flores VL, Moran A, Bernstein M*, Katz DB. Preexposure to salty and sour taste enhances conditioned taste aversion to novel sucrose. Learn Mem. 2016 Apr 15;23(5):221-8. doi:10.1101/lm.040360.115. Print 2016 May. PubMed PMID: 27084929
Flores VL, Parmet T*, Mukherjee N, Nelson S, Katz DB & Levitan D. The role of the gustatory cortex in incidental experience-evoked enhancement of later taste learning. Learn Mem. 2018. 25(11):587-600 PMID: 30322892.
*Undergraduate Assistants
Awards
Pre-doctoral Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award, (NRSA - F31)
Verna Regan Teaching Award in Psychology for undergraduate teaching
Brandeis University Prize Instructorship Award
Neuroscience Scholars Program, Associate Fellow, Society for Neuroscience
Society for the Advancement of Hispanic/Chicanos and Native Americans in Science Travel Award
Association for Chemoreception Sciences Diversity Fellowship Travel Award
Teaching & Mentoring Undergraduate Students
I have found teaching and mentoring undergraduates in science as rewarding as my research. During my graduate career, I have also been working on pursuing a career at a predominately undergraduate university and am very excited to join Furman University as Assistant Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience in the Fall of 2019 where I will continue this research trajectory alongside undergraduate colleagues!
Courses Taught
Experimental Design in Psychology, Lasell College, 2018
Introduction to Learning & Behavior, Brandeis University, 2016
Teaching Fellowships/Assistant-ship Courses
Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience
Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience
Introduction to Neuropsychology
Research Methods in Psychology
Guest Lecture in the Behavioral Neuroscience of Language