Dr. Gul Dolen

Biography

Gul Dolen is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, holding the Renee & U.S. Marine LCPl Bob Parsons Endowed Chair in the Department of Psychology. Dolen earned an MD/PhD from Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses primarily on Behavioral Systems Neuroscience, specifically examining the mechanisms through which psychedelics can reopen critical periods for social reward learning, as well as exploring social behaviors across species including octopuses. His lab has led to pivotal discoveries regarding the role of psychedelics in psychiatric treatments and has undertook significant work with octopus species to study their social behaviors and neural circuits. Dolen's extensive work includes significant publications in high-impact journals and a growing interest in understanding and manipulating developmental periods in brain function across different species. He also engages in the genomic analysis of octopuses, proposing a new model for studying the evolution of complex social behaviors and neural functions.

Research Interests