Biography
Nicholas Simon received his PhD in psychology in 2010 from Texas A&M University, where he studied the neural and pharmacological substrates of cost-benefit decision-making behavior under Barry Setlow.
He joined the Moghaddam Lab as a postdoctorate researcher in 2010. Nick’s current research projects involve the use of electrophysiological recording techniques to analyze the functional interaction between prefrontal cortical structures during learning and behavior.
Publications
Simon, N.W. and Moghaddam, B. (2016) Methylphenidate has nonlinear dose effects on cued response inhibition in adults but not adolescents. Brain Research, in press.
Simon, N.W., Wood, J., and Moghaddam, B. (2015) Action – outcome relationships are represented differently by medial prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex neurons during action execution. Journal of Neurophysiology, 114(6):3374-85.
Kim, Y., Simon, N.W., Wood, J., and Moghaddam, B. (2015) Reward anticipation is encoded differently by adolescent VTA neurons. Biological Psychiatry, 79(11):878-86.
Simon, N.W. and Moghaddam, B. (2015) Neural processing of reward in adolescent rodents. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 11:145-54.
Simon, N.W., Beas, B.S., Montgomery, K.S., Haberman, R.P., Bizon, J.L., Setlow, B. (2013) Prefrontal cortical-striatal dopamine receptor mRNA expression predicts distinct forms of impulsivity. European Journal of Neuroscience, 37(11): 1779-88.
Simon, N.W., Gregory, T.A., Wood, J., and Moghaddam, B. (2013) Differences in response initiation and behavioral flexibility between adolescent and adult rats. Behavioral Neuroscience, 127(1):23-32.
Gilbert, R.J., Mitchell, M.R., Simon, N.W., Bañuelos, C., Setlow, B., Bizon, J.L. (2012) Risk, reward, and decision-making in a rodent model of cognitive aging. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 5:144.
Simon, N.W., Setlow, B. (2012) Modeling risky decision making in rodents. Methods of Molecular Biology, 829:165-75.
Simon, N.W., Montgomery, K.S., Beas, B.S., Mitchell, M.R., LaSarge, C.L., Mendez, I.A., Bañuelos, C., Vokes, C.M., Taylor, A.B., Haberman, R.P., Bizon, J.L., Setlow, B. (2011) Dopaminergic modulation of risky decision-making. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(48):17460-70.
Mitchell, M.R., Vokes, C.M., Blankenship, A.L., Simon, N.W., Setlow, B. (2011) Effects of acute administration of nicotine, amphetamine, diazepam, morphine, and ethanol on risky decision-making in rats. Psychopharmacology, 218(4):703-12.
Mendez, I.A., Simon, N.W., Hart, N., Mitchell, M.R., Nation, J.R., Wellman, P.J., Setlow, B. (2010) Self-administered cocaine causes long-lasting increases in impulsive choice in a delay discounting task. Behavioral Neuroscience, 124(4):470-7.
Setlow, B., Mendez, I.A., Mitchell, M.R., & Simon, N.W. (2009) The effects of chronic administration of drugs of abuse on discounting of delayed rewards (impulsive choice) in animal models. Behavioural Pharmacology, 20:380-389.
Simon, N.W., LaSarge, C.L., Williams, M.T., Montgomery, K.S., Mendez, I.A., Setlow, B, & Bizon, J.L. (2010) Good things come to those who wait: Impulsive choice is attenuated in aged Fischer 344 rats. Neurobiology of Aging, 31(5):853-62.
Simon, N.W., Gilbert, R.J., Mayse, J.D., & Setlow, B. (2009) Balancing risk and reward: A rat model of risky decision-making. Neuropsychopharmacology, 34:2208-2217.
Simon, N.W., Mendez, I.A., & Setlow, B. (2009) Prior amphetamine exposure alters approach strategy during Pavlovian conditioning. Psychopharmacology, 202:699-709.
Mendez, I.A., Montgomery, K.S., LaSarge, C.L., Simon, N.W., Bizon, J.L., & Setlow, B. (2008) Long-term deficits in spatial learning produced by cocaine exposure. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 89:185-191.
Simon, N.W., Mendez, I.A., & Setlow, B. (2007) Cocaine exposure causes long-term increases in impulsive choice behavior. Behavioral Neuroscience, 121:543-549.
Simon, N.W. and Setlow, B. (2006) Post-training amphetamine enhances memory consolidation in appetitive Pavlovian conditioning: Implications for drug addiction. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 86:305-310.