Patricia Janak facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Patricia Janak
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| Born | 1965 (age 59–60) United States
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| Alma mater | Rutgers University (B.A., 1986) University of California, Berkeley (M.A., 1990) University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D., 1993) Wake Forest School of Medicine |
| Known for | Addiction research |
| Awards | Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships (2014) Member, Society for Neuroscience Member, Research Society on ... |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neuroscience Behavioral Neuroscience Neurobiology Psychology Neurology |
| Institutions | Johns Hopkins University |
Patricia Janak is a leading scientist. She works at Johns Hopkins University. She is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor. Dr. Janak studies how our brains learn. This is called associative learning. She uses this knowledge to understand behaviors. This includes problems like addiction and posttraumatic stress disorder. Her work helps us learn how things around us affect our actions.
About Patricia Janak
Patricia Janak was born in 1965. She started studying science early. She went to Rutgers University. There, she studied both biology and psychology. She then earned her master's and doctoral degrees. These were in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.
After her degrees, she did more research. This is called post-doctoral work. She worked at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She also worked at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. In 1999, Dr. Janak joined the University of California, San Francisco. She became a professor there.
In 2014, she became a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor. This is a special title at Johns Hopkins University. It is for top researchers and teachers. This program was started by Michael Bloomberg. Dr. Janak now teaches at Johns Hopkins. She works in both the psychology and neuroscience departments.
Her Research Work
Dr. Janak is a neuroscientist. She studies the biological basis of behavior. Her main focus is on associative learning. This is how our brains connect different things. For example, how we learn that a certain sound means food is coming.
She uses scientific models and experiments. She studies how the brain learns and remembers. She looks at how brain cells, called neurons, work together. She uses special tools to record brain activity. This helps her understand how learning happens.
Dr. Janak wants her research to help people. She looks at how learning problems can cause issues. This includes conditions like addiction. Her work helps guide new ways to help people. It can lead to better therapies.
Her most famous article was published in 2013. It was in Nature Neuroscience. It showed a link between brain signals and learning. Dr. Janak has written over 100 scientific papers. She also teaches college courses. These courses are about learning and memory.
See also
- Addiction psychology
- Associative learning
- Instrumental learning
- Pavlovian conditioning
- Neuropsychopharmacology
- Behavioral neuroscience
- Behavioral addiction
