Travis Hodges (PDF)
My main interests are in the effects that different types of stressors during critical periods of development (e.g. early life, adolescence) have on the brain and on behaviour. The main focus of my research has always been on the development of the brain and behaviour from early life to adulthood. In 2012, I finished my undergraduate degree with honours in Psychology at the University of Manitoba (Winnipeg, MB) with a thesis focused on newborn mallard behaviour, supervised by Dr. L. James Shapiro. Then, I traveled to Brock University (St. Catharines, ON) to complete my Master’s and Ph.D. in Psychology (Behavioural Neuroscience stream) in August 2018, supervised by Dr. Cheryl McCormick. Using a rodent model, my graduate projects focused on the susceptibility of the adolescent brain to stressors and non-typical social experiences. Presently, and still using a rodent model, my focus is on cognitive dysfunctions and neural mechanisms underlying cognitive dysfunctions in stressed male and female adolescents and adults, as well as in the offspring of mothers exposed to high stress during pregnancy and in the postpartum. Specifically, I am interested in the sex-specific neural underpinnings of negative cognitive bias/pessimism in rodent models of depression. Outside the lab, I am a huge fan of overanalyzing poorly made movies, going to see musicals, and dancing away all of life’s stressors