The School of Neuroscience is proud to announce that Alec Harlte has successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, Monoaminergic Signaling in the Human Brain: New Insights.

Harlte’s research addresses a long-standing challenge in neuroscience: understanding how monoamine neurotransmitters—dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine contribute to reward processing and decision-making in the human brain. While decades of research in animal and model systems have demonstrated that these neurotransmitters play distinct roles through dynamic patterns of release, direct measurement of their signaling in the living human brain has been limited by technological constraints.

In his dissertation, Harlte presents his contributions to the development and validation of a novel technique designed to measure monoaminergic signaling at physiologically and behaviorally relevant spatiotemporal scales in humans. He also reports findings from two studies that applied this approach to identify region- and function-specific patterns of monoamine release in the brains of conscious human participants.

This work provides new insights into the neurochemical foundations of human cognition and decision-making and represents an important methodological advance for future research in human neuroscience.

The School of Neuroscience congratulates Dr.Alec Harlte on this significant academic achievement.