Lexi Hand

I’m Lexi, a second year PhD Candidate in Professor Anne Lingford-Hughes’ Addiction Research Group at Imperial College London. I received my BSc Pharmacology degree from the University of Bristol and MSc Biomedical Science (Neuroscience) degree from the University of Melbourne. For my MSc, I undertook a 2-year research project in Prof Andrew Lawrence’s Addiction Neuroscience laboratory at the Florey Institute, examining the role of the neuropeptide cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript in the central nucleus of the amygdala during stress-induced alcohol seeking in rats. Now undertaking my PhD, I am characterising brain reactivity patterns during negative emotional processing, focusing on the amygdala, and determining whether this is modulated by NK1 antagonism. Additionally, I am investigating how stress and anxiety impact brain reactivity during negative emotional processing and whether this subsequently impacts relapse outcomes. To achieve this, I am examining neurocognitive and neuroimaging data from our ongoing neuroimaging study NCORE at Imperial.