Joey Charbonneau

Joey is a PhD Candidate in Neuroscience at UC Davis. His research interests center around the neural and evolutionary bases of self-awareness, including awareness of both psychological functions (as in metacognition) and awareness of physiological functions (as in interoception). He studies these processes and the socioaffective behaviors that they engender in a nonhuman primate model, the rhesus macaque, using several techniques including touch screen, eye tracking, and manual testing. His current neuroanatomical focus is on the insula, which he studies using both neuroimaging and histological techniques. Other projects that he is engaged in include assessing the role of the primate amygdala in socioaffective processing, determining the mechanisms through which the adult brain leverages plasticity following damage, and elucidating the extent to which the insula shows homologies across common laboratory study species. He is carrying out his doctoral work under the advisement of Dr. Eliza Bliss-Moreau.