This thesis examined how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) affect mental health and brain development. Using data from the ABCD Study, the researcher found that ACEs were linked to both mental health symptoms and a thicker prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest the brain may adapt to adversity, highlighting new questions about resilience.

This PhD defense presents research at the intersection of machine learning, reinforcement learning, social learning, affective computing, and human-AI interaction. The thesis is that social learning is a powerful mechanism for intelligence and explores how AI agents can learn from one another and from humans. Projects include intrinsic social influence rewards for multi-agent coordination, communication protocols emerging through influence, conversational agents trained from implicit human feedback such as sentiment, generative models improved through facial-expression feedback, and personalized well-being prediction from behavioral and physiological data. The thesis concludes that socially informed learning can improve coordination, adaptability, and human alignment.

This research examines whether integrating yoga into university curricula can improve student well-being and academic success. Through a credit-bearing freshman seminar combining yoga practice, meditation, and coursework, the study evaluates changes in holistic well-being and academic performance, aiming to address the growing mental and physical health challenges facing students.

This research investigates how communication between the heart and brain influences cognition and mental health. By studying heart rate variability, vagus nerve activity, and neural oscillations, it reveals a direct effect of heart rhythms on brain function, offering new insights into schizophrenia, mental illness, and body-based therapeutic interventions.

This research investigates how the brain uses different decision-making strategies and how those strategies vary across individuals, including people with neurodivergent conditions such as autism, schizophrenia, and ADHD. Using controlled game environments and brain imaging, the study maps neural decision-making circuits to better understand cognition, behavioural diversity, and potential therapeutic interventions.

This research examines how alcohol affects the severity and outcomes of suicide attempts among military service members and veterans. By analyzing documented attempts and personal narratives, the study reveals that alcohol often increases impulsivity and lethality, while occasionally interrupting attempts unintentionally, highlighting the need for alcohol-aware suicide prevention strategies.

This neuroscience research investigates how the brain assigns value during decision-making. Using low-intensity focused ultrasound and human single-neuron recordings, the study examines the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and its role in transforming perception into choices. The findings may improve understanding of disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and maladaptive decision-making.