About

My research is driven by a fascination with how we learn to discriminate safety from danger and in unraveling the circuitry that underlies this process. Most of my research focuses on exploring this fascination through a developmental perspective to capture how neural circuitry underlying this ability develops throughout our lifespan. To achieve this, I use a combination of behavioral and systems neuroscience techniques to examine the neurodevelopmental underpinnings of affective regulation and safety learning.

My introduction to research formally began in Dr. Alicia Swan’s psychology lab, where I researched the development of anxiety disorders in adults. Through this research, my fascination with anxiety disorders grew into a desire to study the neural circuitry that underlies aversive behavior and anxiety disorders, which led me to join Dr. Anthony Burgos-Robles' lab. As a research assistant in Dr. Burgo’s neuroscience lab, I focused on studying how projections from the ventral hippocampus to the prefrontal cortices facilitate active avoidance behavior and avoidance learning. It was in this lab that my fascination learning and hippocampal-prefrontal circuitry first developed. This lead me to join Dr. Heidi Meyer’s lab at Boston University, where I continued to explore the role of ventral hippocampal projections to prefrontal cortices in learning. It was here that I deeloped an interest in studying the balance between excitation/inhibition in prefrontal cortices in affective regulation and learning.

In the fall of 2022, I started pursuing my Ph.D. in Neuroscience within Boston University’s Graduate Program for Neuroscience. I hope to continue researching the hippocampal-prefrontal circuitry underlying affective regulation and learning as a doctoral student, and it is my mission to conduct research that strives to inform the causes and development of anxiety disorders to help create new avenues for treatment.

When I’m not in the lab, I enjoy weight lifting and martial arts, playing tabletop and video games, and cooking/baking delicious food. I’m also really into music and science fiction/fantasy/horror media of all types. As a first-generation latina in STEM, commitments to improving diversity and education in STEM is important to me. In my spare time, I enjoy volunteering locally in STEM outreach and educational events. I prefer to publish as and be cited as “Magalhães, G.”