Sara Morrison earned a Whitehall Foundation grant

The formation of habits can be encouraged by cues — such as a bell ringing — that signal when an action will result in a reward — such as a tasty treat. Habits are different from more flexible “goal-directed” actions, but researchers don’t understand much about the brain mechanisms that cause a cued action to be goal-directed as opposed to habitual.

Sara Morrison, research assistant professor in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Neuroscience, was awarded a prestigious grant from the Whitehall Foundation to shed some light on the issue.

Morrison hypothesizes that two different regions of the medial prefrontal cortex, an area involved in decision-making, will send different types of information to a region of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. This brain region is involved in transforming motivating information into action.

To test her theory, Morrison plans to use the variations that naturally exist among animals when it comes to responding to cues.

The Whitehall Foundation grant will provide $100,000 a year for three years to the Morrison lab.