Biobehavioral Regulation, Learning and Ethology Study Section – BRLE
The Biobehavioral Regulation, Learning, and Ethology Study Section reviews applications on normal and disordered basic biobehavioral processes across the lifespan (prenatal through old age), including learning, homeostatic processes with behavioral outputs, consummatory behavior, social behavior, and substance abuse, primarily in animal models, although relevant work with humans can be reviewed in BRLE. Bio-behaviorally-focused applications that also consider related neural, hormonal, and genetic factors are appropriate for BRLE. Applications involving unconditioned reflexes or involuntary behaviors, with a few exceptions, are not reviewed in BRLE. Methods include (but are not limited to) behavioral experiments, naturalistic observation, hormonal, genetic, molecular, surgical and pharmacologic interventions, and computational modeling.
Review Dates
Topics
- Behavioral mechanisms of substance abuse, predominantly in animal models:
- Operant and classical conditioning, learning, cognition, and behavioral control, predominantly in animal models
- Social and nonsocial behavior, behavioral development, behavioral aspects of regulatory and homeostatic processes, emotion, and communication, predominantly in animals
Shared Interests and Overlaps
Applications with the goal of understanding behavioral processes are appropriate for review in BRLE; applications with the goal of understanding neural processes are appropriate for review in LMDN, NMB, or BNRS.
Addiction Risks and Mechanisms Study Section [ARM]: applications on neurocognitive processes and mechanism of addiction in humans are reviewed in ARM; applications involving basic conditioning mechanisms in human addiction or animal models of addiction are reviewed in BRLE.
Human Complex Mental Function (HCMF): applications that focus on basic mechanisms of learning such as classical/operant conditioning in humans are reviewed in BRLE; higher-order cognitive processes in humans are reviewed in HCMF. Animal models of learning or navigation with a predominantly behavioral orientation are also reviewed in BRLE; human studies of navigation are reviewed in HCMF.
Learning, Memory and Decision Neuroscience (LMDN): applications that focus predominantly on the neurobiological structures, correlates, or processes underlying learning and memory in animal models are reviewed in LMDN.
Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior (NMB): applications that focus predominantly on the neural substrate of positively or negatively motivated behaviors (reward, effects of psychoactive agents, emotion states, consummatory behaviors) in animal models are reviewed in NMB.
Behavioral Neuroendocrinology, Neuroimmunology, Rhythms, and Sleep (BNRS): applications that focus predominantly on the neuroendocrine or neuroimmune basis of behaviors (including sleep, ingestive behavior, reproductive and affiliative behavior), sleep, and biological rhythms in animal models are reviewed in BNRS.
Neural Basis of Psychopathology, Addictions and Sleep Disorders (NPAS): Applications that focus on understanding brain mechanisms of addiction in humans are reviewed in NPAS; applications involving basic conditioning mechanisms in human addiction are reviewed in BRLE.
Pathophysiological Basis of Mental Disorders and Addictions (PMDA): applications that focus predominantly on the neurobiological bases and treatment of mental disorders and addictions in animal models are reviewed in PMDA
Somatosensory and Pain Systems (NPI): applications focusing on the molecular biology or behavioral pharmacology of opioids and similar compounds in the context of pain are reviewed in NPI.
There are shared interests in the role of addiction and drug abuse on normal and disordered cognitive processes with Molecular Cellular Neuropharmacology (MCNP). Applications that emphasize the behavioral aspect are reviewed in BRLE. Applications that emphasize the underlying cellular or molecular mechanisms of addiction or abuse are reviewed in MCNP.
