Ignacio Rivero Covelo

Teaching Interests

Dr. Covelo teaches courses in behavioral neuroscience where students explore the relationship between brain function and behavior. His interests also include the neurobiology of mental disorders, emphasizing the underlying neural mechanisms of conditions such as anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia. Additionally, Dr. Covelo enjoys teaching psychopharmacology, providing students with a basic understanding of how drugs influence the brain and behavior in clinical and non-clinical settings.

Research Interests

My main scientific interest is the study of how the brain controls motivated behaviors (e.g., food, water, sex, drug seeking, and consumption).

To address my main interest, I am studying how a brain circuit composed of the nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, and hypothalamic nuclei regulates feeding. Specifically, feeding in excess of the organism’s homeostatic needs or overeating. In this program, I work with a group of undergraduate students. In the laboratory, we use preclinical nonhuman animal models to explore how pharmacological and chemogenetic manipulations of brain cells within this brain circuit lead to dysregulated feeding.

I believe that this line of research can potentially lead to novel therapeutic methods aimed at treating overeating and other disorders of dysfunctional feeding. And inform our understanding of disorders characterized by dysfunctional motivation.

Consulting Interests

Dr. Covelo is an expert in behavioral neuroscience available for consulting on grant proposals, research methodologies, designing behavioral models, and advising on data interpretation.

Selected Publications

2025: Effects of Ventral Pallidum–Nucleus Accumbens Shell Neural Pathway Modulation on Sucrose Consumption and Motivation in Female Rats: Chemogenetic Manipulation (Preprint), JMIR Publications Inc.

2024: Chemogenetic manipulation of the ventral pallidum-nucleus accumbens shell pathway modulates sucrose consumption independent of motivation in female rats, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

2020: The lateral hypothalamus and orexinergic transmission in the paraventricular thalamus promote the attribution of incentive salience to reward-associated cues., Psychopharmacology (3741-3758 pp.)

2019: The paraventricular thalamus is a critical mediator of top-down control of cue-motivated behavior in rats., eLife

2018: Transient inactivation of the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus enhances cue-induced reinstatement in goal-trackers, but not sign-trackers., Psychopharmacology (999-1014 pp.)

2014: Manipulation of GABA in the ventral pallidum, but not the nucleus accumbens, induces intense, preferential, fat consumption in rats., Behavioural brain research (316-25 pp.)

2012: Effects of muscimol in the nucleus accumbens shell on salt appetite and sucrose intake: a microstructural study with a comment on the sensitization of salt intake., Behavioral neuroscience (699-709 pp.)

2012: GABA(A) and dopamine receptors in the nucleus accumbens shell differentially influence performance of a water-reinforced progressive ratio task., Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior (57-61 pp.)

2010: Lower number of cerebellar Purkinje neurons in psychosis is associated with reduced reelin expression., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (4407-11 pp.)

2009: The Decrease of n-3 Fatty Acid Energy Percentage in an Equicaloric Diet Fed to B6C3Fe Mice for Three Generations Elicits Obesity, Cardiovascular Psychiatry and Neurology (1-7 pp.)

College Service

: Committee Member - IACUC

University Service

: Committee Member - Institutional Review Board

: Committee Member - Biosafety Committee

: Committee Member - Committee on academic planning

: Committee Chair - General Education Committee