Research on Neurobiology of Reward

SHAO LABORATORY

“Pleasure is the object, duty and the goal of all rational creatures.”

– Voltaire

What is the biological basis of pleasure? That is the question. Most, if not all, of us think of food and sex as pleasurable. Why? And How? The appropriate responses to these pleasurable stimuli are crucial for animals to survive the environments. In our lab, we perform multidisciplinary research to pursue questions for the neural basis underlying the experience of pleasure. Please read more in the RESEARCH page.

News

2025 Update

2025 Update

Happy New Year! I just realized I’ve been writing one “News” post per year… maybe we should rename this tab from News to Yearly Summary. 🙂 2025 was a lot—in the best way. 1) People: big transitions, new faces First, our team changed in major ways. While we said goodbye to several labmates and friends, … Read more
Update for 2024

Update for 2024

2024 has been a highly productive year for the Shao lab, with every lab member making significant strides in their projects. Here are some exciting highlights from this year. We look forward to even more groundbreaking progress in 2025! Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to explore and make discoveries in the fascinating … Read more