Mahsa Moaddab

Mahsa Moaddab is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Psychology Department at Boston College. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Otago. Her research focuses on neural mechanisms underlying fear conditioning, stress responses, and addiction, with a particular emphasis on oxytocin’s role in emotional and reward pathways. Her work employs rodent models to explore how early life adversity and substance use interact with brain circuits like the nucleus accumbens and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.

Education:

• Ph.D., University of Otago

Research interests include behavioral neuroscience, neuropharmacology, and the neurobiology of anxiety and substance use disorders. Her studies investigate threat signaling in brain regions such as the retrorubral field and ventral pallidum, as well as the impact of adolescent alcohol exposure on adult neurobiology.

Her publications highlight interdisciplinary approaches combining electrophysiology, pharmacology, and behavioral paradigms to understand stress adaptation and reward processing. She has contributed to understanding how oxytocin influences fear acquisition and reward-seeking behaviors.