Joey Charbonneau, PhD
2026 Leon Levy Scholar in Neuroscience
New York University
Sub-disciplinary Category
Systems Neuroscience
Previous Positions
- BA, New York University
- PhD, University of California, Davis (Dr. Eliza Bliss-Moreau)
Bio
A native New Yorker, Dr. Joey Charbonneau completed his bachelor’s degree at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where he crafted an interdisciplinary concentration at the intersection of neuroscience, history and philosophy of science, bioethics, and music. As an undergraduate student, he carried out research in Dr. Dan Sanes’ laboratory studying social learning in Mongolian gerbils. He then moved to California to complete his PhD under Dr. Eliza Bliss-Moreau at the University of California Davis and the California National Primate Research Center. As a PhD student, he used psychophysiological, neuroimaging, and neuroanatomical methods in macaque monkeys to interrogate neurobiological systems underlying internal sensory experiences. As a Leon Levy scholar, Dr. Charbonneau will continue his work in non-human primates with Dr. Erin Rich at the New York University Center for Neural Science, now applying neurophysiological and neuromodulatory approaches to investigate mechanisms of internally generated biases in motivated behaviors.
Research Summary
Investigating the causal mechanisms of expectation bias in primate frontal cortex and its role in motivated behaviors.
Technical Overview
Neuropsychiatric diseases are among the most treatment-resistant conditions in medicine, and therapeutic innovations for these diseases lag behind those in other fields. A common feature across neuropsychiatric disorders is pathological expectation states, including both pathologically negative expectations (e.g., major depression: pessimistic future outlook, social anxiety: anticipated rejection, generalized anxiety: catastrophic forecasting) and positive expectations (e.g., gambling disorder: anticipation of unlikely wins, substance use disorder: overvaluation of drug rewards, bipolar mania: unrealistic optimism about risky behaviors). Targeted neural stimulation is a promising new avenue for treating neuropsychiatric diseases, but we lack a mechanistic understanding of how targeted stimulation impacts neural networks underlying these disorders, rendering optimization and wide deployment of neuromodulatory interventions challenging. Dr. Joey Charbonneau aims to take advantage of the best available animal model for human brain function, macaque monkeys, to examine the causal role of frontal cortical circuits in generating and updating affective expectations. He will leverage cutting-edge neuromodulatory and high-density recording techniques in combination with an innovative behavioral paradigm to determine how primate frontal cortex influences behavior through outcome expectation signals and how these can be modulated with precisely targeted electrical stimulation. This work has the potential to inform the development of next generation neuromodulatory therapies with enhanced spatial, temporal, and computational specific for treating broad conditions characterized by persistent maladaptive expectations.
Learn about the The Leon Levy Scholarships in Neuroscience.