MizzouForward Keynote – Brain circuits for motivating sensory- guided emotions, decisions, and behavior

October 10th | 11:00am - 12:00pm

111 Tucker Hall  

Join us for “Brain circuits for motivating sensory- guided emotions, decisions, and behavior" a keynote presentation by Dr. Dan Wesson, College of Arts & Science, MizzouForward faculty candidate.  Dr. Wesson will present on his research for approximately 40-minutes with a 20-minute question and 

answer session to follow.

Dr. Dan Wesson is an Associate Professor at the University of Florida in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics.  Since starting his independent research group in 2011, Dan Wesson has developed a research program focusing on critical questions regarding how the brain guides perception and behavior. He is the #1 ranked expert in the world on a brain region called the tubular striatum (based on ExpertScape compared to over 300 other published authors over the past 2 decades). Through this, he is a recognized expert on the brain basis for sensory perception, with an emphasis on how populations of neurons in the brain coordinate perception and learning in manners important for informing decisions and motivating behavior. The tubular striatum is a conserved brain region, found in the brains of both rodents and humans. His group’s work has contributed more published literature than any other group in the world on the physiology of the tubular striatum (also known as the olfactory tubercle) and has resulted in a working model whereby the tubular striatum is a powerful brain region for evaluating sensory information in the context of motivational demands and generating actions based upon that evaluation. This model, together with the connectivity of the tubular striatum with brain regions including the frontal cortex (decisions), amygdala (emotions), and subthalamic nucleus (movement), implicates this brain area in numbers neurological and psychiatric disorders.

Dr. Wesson’s research has been/is funded by foundations and agencies including the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Science Foundation, the Alzheimer’s Association, and more. In addition to his research, he is engaged in extensive service, having recently served as elected Secretary for the Association for Chemoreception Sciences, a standing member for the National Institutes of Health study section on Leaning, Memory, and Decision Neurosciences, and serves on his Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. He has received numerous award and honors, including for teaching and research, most recently receiving an Exemplary Teacher Award from the UF College of Medicine and the Young Investigator Award for Research in Olfaction from the Association for Chemoreception Sciences. He has also served in several advisory roles, including being invited to serve on the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders strategic planning committee in 2021 and bring invited to serve on the ASAP working group for the CEO of Alphabet Inc (Google) in 2018.

You can access Dr. Wesson’s CV via OneDrive here:

  DWesson_CV_9.2022.pdf (University log in required to access)

After the keynote, please provide candidate feedback with our brief survey.