The Hynes Lab
Disrupting the neuroscience of addiction
Simon Fraser University
Kiana Moharreri
SFU MA Student
Kianna is focused on three main research questions: 1) how drug-seeking behavior is shaped by internal conditions, such as emotional and physiological states, as well as external influences like environmental cues; (2) how neural systems adapt across different stages of substance use and withdrawal; and (3) the factors that contribute to vulnerability to substance use disorder and impulsive behavior, with a particular emphasis on the role of pain. Her interest in this regard culminated from both her work in the laboratory of Professor Ameneh Rezayof at the University of Tehran and Professor Anthony Phillips at the University of British Columbia, looking at how pain sensitivity and perception interact in substance use and addiction. In the Hynes Lab, Kianna will address these questions through an integrative approach that spans behavioural, molecular, and translational methods. She will also consider sex as a biological variable to better understand individual differences in addiction-related processes.
Kimberley Marty
SFU MA Student (CGSM Funded)
Kim wants to know why people make bad decisions (e.g., gamble and doom scroll) and how females and males differ in this regard. In both popular and top secret in development animal models of decision making, Kim records brain activity using fluorescent biosensors and fibre photometry. Kim is in search of the neural signature of a bad decision, and she thinks this signature might differ between females and males. When she finds it, she is going to deploy a closed-loop optical intervention to quell the signal and prevent a bad decision before it happens. Before joining the Hynes Lab, Kim worked with Drs. Daniela Palombo, Fidel Vila-Rodriguez, & Peter Suedfeld at the University of British Columbia. Kim got interested in the biological basis of addiction when she took Dr. Hynes' class "Brain & Behaviour." When not doing research, Kim can be found reading on her couch cuddled up with her two bunny rabbits.
Mary Hudson
SFU MA Student - Circadian Scientist in Residence
Mary is a master’s student based in the laboratory of legendary circadian biologist Dr. Ralph Mistlberger and is helping the Hynes Lab understand how time itself can trigger reward seeking. She studies circadian rhythms and how rewarding stimuli, such as food, can shape behaviour outside of the brain’s central clock (suprachiasmatic nucleus or SCN). She is interested in the cellular mechanisms behind reward anticipation and how rhythmic clock gene expression interacts with dopaminergic reward circuits to influence addiction-like behaviour in rodent models. In the Hynes lab, she is exploring how circadian timing mechanisms and dopamine-dependent learning processes within the striatum may influence time-of-day-specific drug anticipation and vulnerability to addiction, including differences in both biological male and female rats. Outside of the lab, she enjoys spending time with her three cats and two dogs, playing volleyball, and collecting unconventional art.