Overview
Dr. Adcock received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Emory University and her MD and PhD in Neurobiology from Yale University. She completed her psychiatry residency training at Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute at UC-San Francisco and did neurosciences research as a postdoctoral fellow at UC-SF, the San Francisco VA Medical Center, and Stanford before joining the Duke faculty in 2007. Her work has been funded by NIDA, NIMH, NSF and Alfred P. Sloan and Klingenstein Fellowships in the Neurosciences, and the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, and honored by NARSAD awards, the 2012 National Academy of Sciences Seymour Benzer Lectureship, and the 2015 ABAI BF Skinner Lectureship. The overall goals of her research program are to understand how brain systems for motivation support learning and to use mechanistic understanding of how behavior changes biology to meet the challenge of developing new therapies appropriate for early interventions for mental illness.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Recent Publications
Motivation as Neural Context for Adaptive Learning and Memory Formation.
Journal Article Annu Rev Psychol · October 7, 2025 Our memories shape our perception of the world and guide adaptive behavior. Rather than a veridical record of experiences, memory is selective. An accumulating body of work suggests that motivational states, emerging from the interplay between internal and ... Full text Link to item CiteLearning emotion regulation: An integrative framework.
Journal Article Psychol Rev · January 2025 Improving emotion regulation abilities, a process that requires learning, can enhance psychological well-being and mental health. Empirical evidence suggests that emotion regulation can be learned-during development and the lifespan, and most explicitly in ... Full text Link to item CiteFirst impressions or good endings? Preferences depend on when you ask.
Journal Article J Exp Psychol Gen · October 2024 Rewards often unfold over time; we must summarize events in memory to guide future choices. Do first impressions matter most, or is it better to end on a good note? Across nine studies (N = 569), we tested these competing intuitions and found that preferen ... Full text Link to item CiteRecent Grants
Neurobiology Training Program
Inst. Training Prgm or CMEMentor · Awarded by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke · 2024 - 2029Duke-NCCU Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Training Program in Child Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Conditions Program (DN-IPT)
Inst. Training Prgm or CMEPreceptor · Awarded by National Institute of Mental Health · 2024 - 2029Duke University Psychiatry Physician-Scientist Residency Training Program
Inst. Training Prgm or CMEMentor · Awarded by National Institute of Mental Health · 2024 - 2029View All Grants