Dara Ghahremani, Ph.D.

Titles:
Research Professor, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
Faculty Member, UCLA Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoids

Biography:
Dr. Ghahremani received his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from the Psychology Department at Stanford University (Advisor: Dr. John Gabrieli) and was a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA (with Dr. Russell Poldrack). His research aims to understand self-control behavior, its neural basis, how it is compromised in substance misuse, and how it may be strengthened using both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions.

The self-control behaviors he focuses on include behavioral flexibility, response inhibition, and emotion regulation. He uses multiple neuroimaging techniques to investigate the neural basis of self-control, including functional MRI (fMRI) to measure brain activation and functional connectivity while people perform various tests of self-control and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to measure neurochemical markers of dopamine function. His studies examine both healthy control participants and those that misuse substances. These include adults who use methamphetamine and cigarettes as well as adolescents that use tobacco and cannabis. The interventions employed for potential enhancement of self-control behavior include pharmacological agents that show promise for enhancing cognitive function and non-pharmacological approaches (e.g., controlled breathing) that promote autonomic balance. His recent studies on non-pharmacological approaches have focused on the YES! for Schools program, a biopsychosocial workshop for adolescents that promotes self-regulation.