Talia N. Lerner, PhD

Talia N. Lerner is an Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University whose research focuses on how dopamine circuits regulate reward learning, motivation, and decision-making. Trained as a circuit and systems neuroscientist, she has combined electrophysiology, whole-brain circuit tracing, optogenetics, and fiber photometry to reveal how projection-defined dopamine subcircuits in dorsomedial and dorsolateral striatum differentially control goal-directed and habitual actions, compulsive behavior, and avoidance learning. She is a pioneer of fiber photometry technology and has advanced open science by developing and disseminating analysis tools such as the GuPPy Python toolbox. Her lab now investigates how stress and glucocorticoid signaling shape dopamine function and how heterogeneous dopamine circuits are disrupted during Parkinson’s disease progression, supported by NIH, ASAP, and major foundation awards.