Laura Ribalta defends her PhD thesis and causes a blast!

Last FRiday November 7th 2025, Laura Ribalta defended her thesis titled Neural Dynamics of Adaptive and Maladaptive Reward-Seeking behavior in the faculty of Biology of the Univ. Pompeu Fabra. In her thesis, co-supervised by Elena Martín and Rafael Maldonado, from the Neurophar Laboratory (UPF) and Jaime de la Rocha (BCB-IDIBAPS), Laura investigated the electrophysiological signatures underlying adaptive versus maladaptive responses to reward unavailability. Using a validated operant model of food addiction, she examined the contribution of the ventral hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex (vHPC–mPFC) participation to impulsive responding for palatable food. Then, using a foraging paradigm with unpredictable reward contingencies, she examined how hippocampal spatial representations support flexible decision-making. The PhD thesis committee was composed by Cyril Herry PhD (Neurocentre Magendie, Bordeaux), Prof. Marta Torrens MD, PhD (Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Barcelona) and Pablo Jercog PhD (Institute Ramón y Cajal, CSIC, Madrid). The committee was very rigorous and made a number of hard questions from the metabolic needs of the mice during the tasks, to how to create null hypothesis by data shuffling methods passing by questions about whether drug addiction can be different in legal versus non-legal substances. Laura, as usual, did not let herself get intimidated by the breath and depth of the questions and defended her work confidently and effectively. She did a terrific job that was recognized by the jury members as well as by the rest of the audience.
Dr Ribalta, enhorabona per la feina ben feta!!