Back to Play Scientists
Research scientist in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge, Vivien Pellis is a long-time collaborator and co-author with Sergio Pellis on virtually all of his landmark work on the neuroscience of play. Together they co-authored The Playful Brain: Venturing to the Limits of Neuroscience, the most comprehensive account of how rough-and-tumble play shapes prefrontal cortical development. Her work brings expertise in comparative ethology and behavioral analysis, contributing to the detailed frame-by-frame analysis of play movements that underpins the Pellis lab's mechanistic understanding of how play builds the social brain.
Vivien Pellis, PhD
Most Influential Work
The Playful Brain: Venturing to the Limits of Neuroscience (with Sergio Pellis; Simon & Schuster, 2009)
Rough-and-Tumble Play: Training and Using the Social Brain (Brain Sciences, 2019)