Deconstructing OCD Through the Use of Multiple Operant Behavioral Tasks in Rodents

Guy Higgins, PhD, Global CSO, Transpharmation Ltd., Adjunct Professor, Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Toronto

Dr. Higgins has significant experience in CNS drug discovery and early clinical development, exemplified by contributions to over 15 NCEs entering the IND enabling phase, and three reaching the market. He is the listed inventor of more than 20 patents and has authored over 160 original research papers and review articles published in peer-reviewed journals spanning a 35-year period. Since 2008, he has focused on using this experience in the domain of contract research, supporting clients in their drug R&D efforts.

Parisa Moazen, PhD, Scientific Director, Global Scientific Representative of Cognition and Aging, Transpharmation Ltd.

Dr. Parisa Moazen completed her PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience under the supervision of Dr. Saeed Semnanian at Tarbiat Modares University in Iran, before undertaking advanced training in the laboratory of Professor Trevor Robbins at the University of Cambridge, a global leader in cognitive and behavioral neuroscience. She subsequently pursued postdoctoral research at the University of Calgary in the laboratory of Dr. Deborah Kurrasch, where she deepened her expertise in translational neuroscience. Dr. Moazen joined Transpharmation in 2024 as Scientific Director of the Operant Platform, a powerful tool in drug discovery that provides sensitive, translational measures of cognition, motivation and decision-making closely aligned with human clinical endpoints. These readouts are directly applicable to research across a range of therapeutic areas, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, ADHD and others. By leveraging these approaches, Dr. Moazen supports clients in advancing their research and development programs, helping to bridge the gap between preclinical models and therapeutic applications.

Trevor Robbins, PhD, Professor, Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Cambridge

Dr. Trevor Robbins is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and the Director of Research at the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, whose mission is to interrelate basic and clinical research in psychology, psychiatry and neurology. He was formerly the Head of the Department of Psychology from 2002-2017.

Trevor is one of the most cited neuroscientists in the world, having published over a thousand peer-reviewed articles that have been cited more than 215,000 times (Google Scholar; H-index 270). He has co-edited 10 books (most recently, The Frontal Cortex: Organization, Networks, and Function, MIT Press, 2024) and serves as an editor for the journal Psychopharmacology, as well as an editorial advisor for Science magazine. He was elected FMedSci in 1999, FRS in 2005 and made a CBE “for medicine services” in 2012.

Among several awards, he shared the valuable Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Prize in 2014 and has received the Gold Medal of the US Society of Biological Psychiatry (2017), the Patricia Goldman-Rakic Award for Cognitive Neuroscience (2017), the Lifetime Achievement Award of the British Psychological Society (2018) and the William James Fellow Award of the International Association of Psychological Science (2021).