Mauricio R. Delgado
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh
Department of Psychology
101 Warren Street, Smith Hall, Rm. 340
Newark, NJ 07102, USA
Office: (973)353-5440, ext. 241
Lab: (973)353-5440, ext. 278
Fax: (973)353-1171
E-mail: delgado at(@) psychology.rutgers.edu
Research Interests
Research in the lab focuses on understanding the intrinsic relationship between
rewards, punishments and behavior. Day to day activities, such as going to work,
are performed routinely to either achieve a reward (e.g., receiving a paycheck) or
to avoid a punishment (e.g., losing your job). Our behavior is motivated by the
outcome of our actions, due to societal and survival demands. Therefore, a necessary
step in understanding behavior is to understand how knowledge of rewards and
punishments is represented in our brain, and how such knowledge leads to learning
of new associations that serve to guide goal-directed behavior (e.g., going to
work leads to monetary income).
The lab uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in conjunction with
physiological and behavioral measures to investigate how behavior can be shaped
by rewards and punishments. Studies range from simple processes that can be
mapped on to current animal studies (e.g., learning that a stimulus predicts
a reward), to more complex processes displayed during social interaction in
everyday behavior (e.g., learning to trust someone during an economic exchange).
Selected Publications
Delgado, M.R., Olsson, A., Phelps, E.A. (2006). Extending animal models of fear conditioning to humans. Biological Psychology (in press).
Delgado, M.R., Frank, R.H., Phelps, E.A. (2005). Perceptions of moral character modulate the neural systems of reward during the trust game. Nature Neuroscience, 8 (11): 1611-1618.
Wilson, S.J., Sayette, M.A., Delgado, M.R., Fiez, J.A. (2005). Instructed smoking expectancy modulates cue-elicited neural activity: A preliminary study. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 7 (4):637-645.
Delgado, M.R., Miller, M.M, Inati, S., Phelps, E.A. (2005). An fMRI study of reward-related probability learning. NeuroImage, 24 (3):862-73.
Sharot, T., Delgado, M.R., Phelps, E.A. (2004). How emotion enhances the feeling of remembering. Nature Neuroscience, 7 (12):1376-1380.
Phelps, E.A., Delgado, M.R., Nearing, K.I., LeDoux, J.E. (2004). Extinction learning in humans: Role of the amygdala and vmPFC. Neuron, 43 (6): 897-905.
Delgado, M.R., Stenger, V.A., Fiez, J.A. (2004). Motivation-dependent responses in the human caudate nucleus. Cerebral Cortex, 14:1022-1030.
May, J.C., Delgado, M.R., Dahl, R.E., Stenger, V.A., Ryan, N.D., Fiez, J.A., Carter, C.S. (2004). Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging of reward-related brain circuitry in children and adolescents. Biological Psychiatry, 55:359-366.
Tricomi, E.M., Delgado, M.R., Fiez, J.A. (2004). Modulation of caudate activity by action contingency. Neuron, 41:281-292.
Delgado, M.R., Locke, H.M., Tenger, V.A., Fiez, J.A. (2003). Dorsal striatum responses to reward and punishment: Effects of valence and magnitude manipulations. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 3(1):27-38.
Delgado, M.R., Nystrom, L.E., Fissell, C., Noll, D.C., Fiez, J.A. (2000). Tracking the hemodynamic responses to reward and punishment in the striatum. Journal of Neurophysiology, 84 (6):3072-3077.