Francesco Leri

Francesco Leri is a full Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Guelph.

His general area of expertise is Behavioural Pharmacology and Neuroscience. Dr. Leri investigates psychological and neuropharmacological mechanisms involved in the development, persistence and recurrence of behaviours reinforced by chemical (cocaine, heroin, oxycodone) and natural (monosaccharaides and disaccharides) rewards. Through psychological (i.e., conditioning), pharmacological and neurobiological experimentations in laboratory animals, his studies have been providing basic scientific knowledge critical to the understanding of hedonic processes, reinforcement monarchisms, as well as addictions and their long-term treatments.

Current projects are: 1) neuropharmacology of reinforcing stimuli (funded by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada); 2) food addiction: studies of bio-behavioral links between nutrition and obesity (funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research); and 3) biomarkers of hedonic responses (pre-clinical project of the Canadian Biomarker Integration Network in Depression funded by the Ontario Brain Institute).

Dr. Leri is actively involved in undergraduate and graduate teaching and research supervision, and he is currently serving as Chair of the Department of Psychology.