Robyn Brown BCom/BSc, PhD

Robyn Brown is a DECRA Fellow and laboratory head in the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology. She completed her PhD at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) in 2010 and a Bachelor of Commerce/Science (Hons) in 2004 at the University of Melbourne. 

In 2011 she obtained a Sir Keith Murdoch Fellowship from the American Australian Association to undertake postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Peter Kalivas (Medical University of South Carolina) where she contributed to a number of influential studies investigating neuroplasticity in drug addiction. During her postdoc, Robyn established an independent line of research investigating the parallels between drug addiction and overeating. In 2014 Robyn returned to Australia (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health) where she continued this line of research and has been continuously funded in the form of career awards and major grants since her return. Her laboratory studies the neural mechanisms underlying pathological forms of motivated behaviour such as loss-of-control eating and drug addiction, as well as the impact of high-fat high-sugar food on the brain and behaviour. Her team uses a multi-disciplinary approach including behavioural models, electrophysiology, fibre photometry, chemogenetics, optogenetics, transgenic mouse models, viral methods and confocal microscopy.