Motivation, decision-making, and telling our stories anyway  For Leili Mortazavi, the benefit of completing her studies in UBC’s department of psychology has been the ability to conduct research as an undergraduate student. Since September 2017, she has been doing so in Dr. Catharine Winstanley’s lab at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health (DMCBH), as part of the department’s Directed Studies […]

New research: Casino lights and sounds encourage risky decision-making  The blinking lights and exciting jingles in casinos may encourage risky decision-making and potentially promote problem gambling behaviour, suggests new research from the Laboratory of Molecular and Behavioural Neuroscience. The findings, published today in JNeurosci, the journal from the Society for Neuroscience, suggest that sensory features in casinos may directly influence a player’s decisions […]

New research: Flashing lights and music turn rats into problem gamblers New research by UBC Psychology Professor Catharine Winstanley and PhD candidate Michael Barrus shows that adding flashing lights and music to gambling encourages risky decision-making—even if you’re a rat. In research published today in the Journal of Neuroscience, scientists at UBC discovered rats behaved like problem gamblers when sound and light cues were added to […]

Dr. Catharine Winstanley awarded a UBC Killam Research Prize Join us in congratulating our very own Catharine Winstanley who was awarded the 2014/15 UBC Killam Research Prize, a university-wide award recognizing outstanding research and scholarly contributions at UBC. UBC honoured the recipients of the 2014 Faculty Research Awards at a reception at the Chan Centre on March 31, 2015. Winners of these peer-nominated awards […]

Dr. Catharine Winstanley’s Synapse of Discovery UBC Psychology Professor Catharine Winstanley’s one-of-a-kind approach to gambling addiction is a highlight of the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, a major research and clinical facility at UBC. Dr. Winstanley would like to eliminate the stigma around mental illness and hopes for the day when it can be proven unequivocally that it is a […]

Q & A with Catharine Winstanley: How the mind works when gambling Tiny ‘rat casino’ offers insight into brain and possible treatments for compulsive gambling UBC Psychology Prof. Catharine Winstanley’s work on gambling addictions will be a highlight of the new Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, a major new research and clinical facility that recently opened at UBC. In 2009, Winstanley’s Laboratory of Molecular and Behavioural Neuroscience […]

Scientists reduce behaviours associated with problem gambling in rats A UBC study involving a “rat casino” may shed light on compulsive gambling behaviours in humans. With the help of a rat casino, University of British Columbia brain researchers have successfully reduced behaviours in rats that are commonly associated with compulsive gambling in humans. The study, which featured the first successful modeling of slot machine-style […]