Biography

Dr. Luchiari received her Ph.D. in zoology/physiology from the Brazilian Academy of Sciences in 2006. She has held some academic positions in Brazil (University of Rio Grande do Norte State–UERN, Federal University of Paraíba –UFPB) before joining Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in 2010 where she is full professor at the Department of Physiology and Vice-Coordinator of the Graduation Course in Psychobiology. Dr. Luchiari has published papers in peer reviewed scientific journals and has been serving as a scientific referee for many scientific journals. Dr. Luchiari’s research has been focusing on the biological and neural mechanisms of behaviour. During her years at UFRN, she has built a nice zebrafish facility that serves as a maintenance place for the fish and also provides resources for research development. As a professor, she has been teaching courses on Animal Physiology, Biological bases of Behavior, Animal Behavior, Comparative Cognition and Scientific writing. Her web page presents the group she has formed and the research she has been doing so far: www.luchiarilab.com


Research Interest

Her research interest has been focused on the biological and neural mechanisms of behaviour. For the past seven years, her research at Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte has been concerned with the development of novel behavioral testing tools for the zebrafish, and neural and behavioral psychopharmacological approaches with zebrafish to study such questions as the mechanisms of alcohol abuse (and other drugs), and of learning and memory. Within her main research area—alcohol effects on the brain and behavior—and two other parallel research areas of interest—the effects of sleep/sleep deprivation on learning and memory and individual differences and stress strategies—she has supervised many graduate and undergraduate students, with whom she has created a strong group for the zebrafish behavioral neuroscience research. She is the chair of some scientific advisory boards and has published papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals in the area of Behavior, Physiology, Cognition and Neuropharmacology.