Since his PhD studies at Bowling Green University, Stephen M. Siviy has worked for over 20 years to extend Jaak Panksepp’s research in affective neuroscience. Now chairperson of the Psychology Department at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, he runs a “rat lab” there that studies the neuroscience and biology of rough-and-tumble social play in mammals. His primary interest is in “identifying neurobiological substrates of mammalian playfulness,” and he has published co-authored articles on that topic in journals such as Behavioural Brain Research, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, and Journal of Comparative Psychology. He has also held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Sydney and UCLA.
Most Influential Work:
- “In Search of the Neurobiological Substrates for Social Playfulness in Mammalian Brains” (Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 35 (9): 1821–30), published in 2011 with Jaak Panksepp, describes a “primary-process executive circuit for play in the rat.”
- His 2016 paper “A Brain Motivated to Play” (Behavior 153 (6–7): 819–44) provides an updated review of research on the “the neurobiological substrates of play.”
View all books and articles on our site by Stephen M. Siviy:
- Sensory modulation of juvenile play in rats
- Rough-and-tumble play as a window on animal communication
- Effects of neonatal decortication on the social play of juvenile rats
- Effects of neonatal handling on play and anxiety in F344 and Lewis rats
- The psychobiology of play: Theoretical and methodological perspectives
- In search of the neurobiological substrates for social playfulness in mammalian brains
- Dorsomedial diencephalic involvement in the juvenile play of rats
