Overview
My work takes a behavioral ecology perspective on understanding the reciprocal relationships between environments, brains, and behaviors in humans. Specifically, my lab, the Life History Lab, looks at how social and physical affordances in development and in the present impact neural sensitivity to rewards and punishment, vigilance, cognitive load, and stress as well positive stimuli like social support and contemplative practices. These sensitivities can encourage certain behaviors and be influenced by them, creating emergent ecologies which can be health promoting or health deteriorating. We use psychophysiology, neuroimaging, molecular, and spatial analysis methodology to answer important questions on the path from environment, to body, to behavior, and ultimately wellbeing and health.
A large part of my work is also community serving or oriented. As the executive director of the Community Neuroscience Initiative, I lead a team of fellow neuroscience professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students, in creating community relations, community-facing content, celebrations, and infrastructure for research.
I describe what I do as “community neuroscience” an interdependent marriage between cutting edge research for tomorrow and community empowering today. It is my belief that science is strengthened through democratization and that communities benefit in knowing more about the ways the environment impacts the brain an ultimately who we are.
Research Focus
Theory: How does human evolutionary, developmental, and contemporary social interdependence play into brain and heart bioenergetics?
Measurement: How can we better apply behavioral ecology to psychological science and with what methods and measures?
Empirical: How do social and physical affordances in the environment, as well as relationship to those environments, mold behavioral and neural strategies in vigilance, reward and punishment sensitivity, stress coping, and social support?
Application: How can neuroscience better partner with community members to promote better science and community thriving simultaneously?
Publications
Recent Publications:
Gonzalez, M. Z., & Rice, M. A. (2024). Behavioural sciences need behavioural ecology. Nature Human Behaviour, 1-3.
Tan, A., Rice, M. A., & Gonzalez, M. Z. (2024). A Pivotal Time and Place: University Place Attachment, Childhood Neighborhood Affordances, and Internalizing Symptoms in Emerging Adulthood. Emerging Adulthood, 21676968241240186.
Merritt, H., Faskowitz, J., Gonzalez, M. Z., & Betzel, R. F. (2024). Stability and variation of brain-behavior correlation patterns across measures of social support. Imaging Neuroscience, 2, 1-18.
