Angela J. Grippo's Laboratory
Department of Psychology, Northern Illinois University
Our research in the Grippo Lab is focused on the interactions of stress, emotion, and neurobiological functioning. Our primary research model is the prairie vole, which is an interesting rodent species that engages in social behaviors similar to humans, including living in family groups, raising offspring together, forming lasting social bonds, and responding negatively to changes in their social environment.
Contact the Grippo Lab
About our Lab
The research methods that we use include:
- The study of behavior
- Changes in the social environment
- Stress responses
- Analysis of the autonomic nervous system and cardiovascular system
- Analysis of the immune and endocrine systems
- The study of brain regions, neurotransmitters, and neurohormones
You can find a list of articles by clicking the Publications link above. The members of the Grippo laboratory include graduate students working toward MA and PhD degrees in psychology with a specific focus on neuroscience and behavior; as well as several undergraduate research assistants working towards degrees in psychology, sociology, education, biology, and chemistry.
Lab News
Updated May, 2026
Congratulations to Alfonso and Co-Authors
May, 2026: Congratulations to Alfonso for winning an award for his poster presentation at the NIU Conference on Undergraduate Research and Engagement (CURE)! Alfonso had the opportunity to present this joint poster at the CURE conference, which focused on the benefits of social buffering to protect against the consequences of social and environmental stress in prairie voles. Alfonso won first place for his presentation in the Social Sciences category! Thank you to Diana and Amal who helped with this poster, and all students and collaborators who contributed to this joint project as well!
Congratulations to Yessie for Recent Awards
May, 2026: We are so proud of Yessie who was recently recognized for her valuable research and service efforts! Yessie received a Graduate Student Award from Midwestern Psychological Association, and she was recognized at an award ceremony at this conference for her presentation and important research contributions. Yessie also received the Carla Montgomery Women in STEM Award at NIU, for her dedication to uplifting women in science at NIU (as well as people of all genders and gender identities). You should be so proud of your efforts, Yessie, and we are very happy that you received these well-deserved honors!
Spring Conferences
April, 2026: Congratulations to several students who attended conferences this spring! Yessie and Nathan gave oral presentations at Midwestern Psychological Association (MPA). Amal, Diana and Alfonso presented a joint poster at MPA; and Alfonso presented this poster again at the NIU Conference on Undergraduate Research and Engagement (CURE). Paria, a high school student who is volunteering in the lab, presented a poster at the Illinois State University High School Research Symposium. These presentations included data from recent projects in the lab focused on stress, behavior, and physiology, as well as the benefits of treatment strategies to protect against social stress - such as environmental enrichment, music listening, social buffering, and resocialization. We are so proud of everyone who contributed to these important projects!
Congratulations to Yessie
December, 2025: Congratulations to Yessie, who won a highly competitive Graduate Research Fund award from the Department of Psychology! This award will help Yessie conduct her upcoming dissertation research focused on treatments for brain injuries and social stress using the prairie vole model. Congratulations, Yessie, we are so proud of you!
Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference
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December, 2025: Congratulations to Alfonso and Joe, who presented research at the NIU Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference in December! Joe presented some data from our ongoing experiments about the influence of music for protecting against stress and memory in prairie voles, and Alfonso presented research about motivation and perception. We are proud of both of you!
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Science Blog
Updated September, 2026
Restoring More Than a Smile
By Khushi Thakkar, Student Research Assistant
Image credit: https://stockcake.com/i/happy-teeth-characters_1384029_840342
When most people think about losing teeth, they picture the physical problems first. Eating can become harder. Speech may feel different. A person may need dentures, partial dentures, or implants to replace the teeth they have lost.
But tooth loss can also affect something less visible: confidence.
A smile is one of the easiest ways people connect with each other. It helps us show happiness, comfort, and warmth without needing to say anything. When someone feels embarrassed about missing teeth or struggles with a painful dental prosthetic, everyday moments can begin to change. They may smile less, avoid conversations, or feel uncomfortable eating around others. Over time, these small changes can affect social connection and emotional well-being.
This connection inspired my research on older adults living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the Chicagoland area. The goal of this research was to understand how dentures or implants affected daily life, in addition to whether they work from a dental perspective. Seventy adults over the age of 65 answered questions about comfort while eating and speaking, pain, confidence in social settings, satisfaction with their prosthetic, and routine dental care.
One of the clearest findings was the connection between comfort and confidence. Participants who felt more comfortable eating and speaking with their prosthetics were also more likely to feel confident around other people. Those who experienced more discomfort or pain were more likely to report lower confidence or no improvement in confidence.
Another finding was more surprising. In this sample, full denture users reported higher comfort while eating and speaking than implant users. Implants are often seen as the more advanced option, but this result showed that the type of prosthetic alone does not guarantee comfort. Follow-up care, proper adjustments, time to adapt, and access to routine dental visits all matter.
This is where psychology becomes part of the story. Feeling comfortable enough to laugh, speak clearly, or share a meal with others may seem simple, yet these moments help people stay connected. For older adults, social connections are closely tied to quality of life. If dental pain or embarrassment causes someone to withdraw, oral health becomes more than a dental issue. It becomes a psychological one too.
Dentistry is often thought of as repairing teeth. In reality, it can also help people regain confidence, independence, and connection with others. Sometimes, restoring a smile means restoring much more than oral health.
Learn more about oral health, aging, and quality of life:
But tooth loss can also affect something less visible: confidence.
A smile is one of the easiest ways people connect with each other. It helps us show happiness, comfort, and warmth without needing to say anything. When someone feels embarrassed about missing teeth or struggles with a painful dental prosthetic, everyday moments can begin to change. They may smile less, avoid conversations, or feel uncomfortable eating around others. Over time, these small changes can affect social connection and emotional well-being.
This connection inspired my research on older adults living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the Chicagoland area. The goal of this research was to understand how dentures or implants affected daily life, in addition to whether they work from a dental perspective. Seventy adults over the age of 65 answered questions about comfort while eating and speaking, pain, confidence in social settings, satisfaction with their prosthetic, and routine dental care.
One of the clearest findings was the connection between comfort and confidence. Participants who felt more comfortable eating and speaking with their prosthetics were also more likely to feel confident around other people. Those who experienced more discomfort or pain were more likely to report lower confidence or no improvement in confidence.
Another finding was more surprising. In this sample, full denture users reported higher comfort while eating and speaking than implant users. Implants are often seen as the more advanced option, but this result showed that the type of prosthetic alone does not guarantee comfort. Follow-up care, proper adjustments, time to adapt, and access to routine dental visits all matter.
This is where psychology becomes part of the story. Feeling comfortable enough to laugh, speak clearly, or share a meal with others may seem simple, yet these moments help people stay connected. For older adults, social connections are closely tied to quality of life. If dental pain or embarrassment causes someone to withdraw, oral health becomes more than a dental issue. It becomes a psychological one too.
Dentistry is often thought of as repairing teeth. In reality, it can also help people regain confidence, independence, and connection with others. Sometimes, restoring a smile means restoring much more than oral health.
Learn more about oral health, aging, and quality of life:
The Science Behind Learning a Musical Instrument
By Paria Lajevardi, Student Research Assistant
Image credit: https://www.classical-music.com/features/instruments/string-instruments
Every time you play an instrument, your brain lights up like a fireworks show on the Fourth of July. Millions of connections are firing and communicating as you read music and listen to sounds. Unlike listening to a song, playing an instrument requires your brain to coordinate movement, emotion, and creativity all at once. The notes that you play strengthen the pathways in your mind, which is why music acts like a mental workout.
When musicians play an instrument, both precision and creativity are necessary. The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for skills such as precision and coordination, while the right is required for creativity and expression. When people play music, both hemispheres of their brain are involved. This has been shown to increase the volume and activity of the corpus callosum, the structure that connects the two hemispheres of the brain. Scientists use a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine to show this phenomenon. An fMRI machine is a brain scan that measures neural activity by detecting changes in blood flow. When scientists studied people playing music, they detected activity from multiple different areas of the brain, involving motor, visual, and auditory information.
Learning an instrument requires discipline and structured practice, which allows musicians to apply these skills to other parts of their lives. Musicians can solve problems quickly and creatively in academic and social settings because of the effective communication among different areas of the brain. Additionally, musicians often remember things more easily because they have unique ways of storing information into multiple categories. These qualities make the benefits of learning an instrument highly unique.
So, the next time you find yourself wanting to learn an instrument, remember that you are doing more than creating music. You are challenging the brain and building skills that extend far beyond the notes you play.
Learn more about the benefits of learning an instrument:
When musicians play an instrument, both precision and creativity are necessary. The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for skills such as precision and coordination, while the right is required for creativity and expression. When people play music, both hemispheres of their brain are involved. This has been shown to increase the volume and activity of the corpus callosum, the structure that connects the two hemispheres of the brain. Scientists use a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine to show this phenomenon. An fMRI machine is a brain scan that measures neural activity by detecting changes in blood flow. When scientists studied people playing music, they detected activity from multiple different areas of the brain, involving motor, visual, and auditory information.
Learning an instrument requires discipline and structured practice, which allows musicians to apply these skills to other parts of their lives. Musicians can solve problems quickly and creatively in academic and social settings because of the effective communication among different areas of the brain. Additionally, musicians often remember things more easily because they have unique ways of storing information into multiple categories. These qualities make the benefits of learning an instrument highly unique.
So, the next time you find yourself wanting to learn an instrument, remember that you are doing more than creating music. You are challenging the brain and building skills that extend far beyond the notes you play.
Learn more about the benefits of learning an instrument:
- How Playing an Instrument Affects Your Brain
- Can music improve our health and quality of life?
- How playing an instrument benefits your brain - Anita Collins
The Importance of Ethical Research Practices
By Joe Busse, Psyc 485 Student
Image credit: https://www.slideshare.net
The Stanley Milgram experiment is an infamous study in psychology. It is one of many important experiments that have shaped the way psychologists ethically conduct research today. The aim of the Milgram experiment was to examine how people obey authority figures if they are asked to administer harm to others. This sounds disturbing, but no physical harm was really being administered in this experiment. The participants were led to believe they were shocking someone with electricity. This core issue has helped shape modern ethical review boards which aim to minimize psychological and physical harm to research participants. Milgram’s experiment involved placing participants into a “teacher” role who would administer shocks to a “learner.” There was no actual shock being administered; all reactions were from an actor pretending to be injured. When the “teacher” encountered a scripted incorrect answer from the “learner,” another actor standing behind them – pretending to be a “researcher” – would urge them to shock the “learner.” The presence of the “researcher” as an authority figure was associated with around 65% of the participants administering a high shock level to the "learner." Although some participants in the Milgram experiment would follow the orders of the “researcher,” - who acted like an authority figure - it is likely that the participants felt conflicted about following these instructions. The Stanley Milgram shock experiment is highly unethical using today’s ethical guidelines. Importantly, this experiment inspired changes in the ethical practices that all researchers must follow, like informed consent and efforts to minimize risk during experiments.
Learn more about Milgram's research:
Learn more about Milgram's research:
- Milgram experiment, Research Starters, EBSCO Research. (2024). EBSCO.
- Milgram Shock Experiment, Summary, Results, Ethics. (2025). Simply Psychology.
Why is it Hard to be Different?
By Joe Busse, Psyc 485 Student
Image credit: https://www.simplypsychology.org/ asch-conformity.html
Can you think of a time you agreed to something just because you didn’t want to stand out? This is called conformity. Conformity is a type of social influence that occurs when an individual changes their beliefs, behaviors, or attitudes to match those of a larger group.
Famous experiments from Solomon Asch evaluated conformity in small group settings. In an experiment in the 1950s, he placed a participant into a group of seven actors posing as participants, who all agreed on their answers beforehand. The participant was intentionally deceived to believe they were a part of a vision test. Now as a group, they were shown two diagrams: one with a thin vertical “target line” and another with three vertical lines of different lengths. Each group member gave their answer to which of the three vertical lines best matched the “target line”. A total of 18 trials were conducted, with 6 being the control where the actors gave correct answers, and 12 as experimental trials where the actors in the group gave an agreed-upon incorrect answers.
Asch observed that 75% of the participants conformed at least once, whereas 25% did not conform at all. After the experiment, Asch found most participants who conformed to the group’s incorrect answer attributed their conformity to normative influence, or not wanting to stand out or “go against” the group even though they knew the answer was incorrect. The rest of the participants who conformed attributed their conformity to informational influence. These participants were unsure of their perceptions and thought they missed something, so they agreed with the majority. Normative influence and informative influence are both types of conformity which explain why people might choose to agree with a group rather than to stand up for their opinions.
Conformity is something that everyone experiences - not just in laboratory experiments, but in everyday life as well. Asch’s important experiences should remind us that sometimes the group majority is wrong and to think about the influences we feel from those around us.
Learn more about social influence:
Famous experiments from Solomon Asch evaluated conformity in small group settings. In an experiment in the 1950s, he placed a participant into a group of seven actors posing as participants, who all agreed on their answers beforehand. The participant was intentionally deceived to believe they were a part of a vision test. Now as a group, they were shown two diagrams: one with a thin vertical “target line” and another with three vertical lines of different lengths. Each group member gave their answer to which of the three vertical lines best matched the “target line”. A total of 18 trials were conducted, with 6 being the control where the actors gave correct answers, and 12 as experimental trials where the actors in the group gave an agreed-upon incorrect answers.
Asch observed that 75% of the participants conformed at least once, whereas 25% did not conform at all. After the experiment, Asch found most participants who conformed to the group’s incorrect answer attributed their conformity to normative influence, or not wanting to stand out or “go against” the group even though they knew the answer was incorrect. The rest of the participants who conformed attributed their conformity to informational influence. These participants were unsure of their perceptions and thought they missed something, so they agreed with the majority. Normative influence and informative influence are both types of conformity which explain why people might choose to agree with a group rather than to stand up for their opinions.
Conformity is something that everyone experiences - not just in laboratory experiments, but in everyday life as well. Asch’s important experiences should remind us that sometimes the group majority is wrong and to think about the influences we feel from those around us.
Learn more about social influence:
The Role of Exercise in Reducing Stress: Insights for Emotional and Cardiovascular Health
By Mikhail Siddiqui and Bhavesh Sivaraj, Student Research Assistants
Image created with Canva AI
Chronic stress negatively affects both psychological and physical health, contributing to depression, cardiovascular problems, and other diseases. Understanding how lifestyle interventions like exercise can protect against these negative effects is important for improving health.
Research with animal models is valuable for understanding how social stress, environmental adversity, and behavioral coping mechanisms influence our brains, biology, and psychological health. Therefore, because social and environmental stress contribute to depression in humans, recent research investigated whether voluntary physical activity would protect prairie voles from the harmful effects of simultaneous social isolation and environmental stress. Prairie voles were chosen due to their high levels of social bonds, which are similar to the way humans form our social bonds. For instance, prairie voles respond to social isolation with behaviors related to depression and anxiety, elevated heart rate, and changes in heart rhythms – patterns that closely resemble human responses to chronic social stress.
In a recent study, after being exposed to stressors, prairie voles were divided into two groups: one that was given access to a running wheel for two weeks of voluntary exercise and one that remained sedentary with no opportunity to exercise. Behavioral indicators of health (depression-related behaviors) and physical indicators of health (heart rate and rhythms) were evaluated to determine whether exercise can protect against negative outcomes of social and environmental stress in prairie voles.
Prairie voles that exercised on a regular basis displayed reduced depression-related behaviors, indicating that they were better able to cope with stress versus the sedentary group. Physiologically, the voles that exercised regularly also exhibited lower resting heart rates and enhanced autonomic nervous system function, indicating heightened cardiovascular resilience and improved physical health. Although there were some differences between males and females in their response to exercise, overall protective effects were observed in both sexes. The findings demonstrate that voluntary exercise is a strong treatment that lessens the psychological and physical health consequences of chronic stress. Because prairie voles and humans demonstrate similar social behaviors and stress responses, this research has implications for managing stress-related disorders in people.
Learn more about exercise in the prairie vole model:
Research with animal models is valuable for understanding how social stress, environmental adversity, and behavioral coping mechanisms influence our brains, biology, and psychological health. Therefore, because social and environmental stress contribute to depression in humans, recent research investigated whether voluntary physical activity would protect prairie voles from the harmful effects of simultaneous social isolation and environmental stress. Prairie voles were chosen due to their high levels of social bonds, which are similar to the way humans form our social bonds. For instance, prairie voles respond to social isolation with behaviors related to depression and anxiety, elevated heart rate, and changes in heart rhythms – patterns that closely resemble human responses to chronic social stress.
In a recent study, after being exposed to stressors, prairie voles were divided into two groups: one that was given access to a running wheel for two weeks of voluntary exercise and one that remained sedentary with no opportunity to exercise. Behavioral indicators of health (depression-related behaviors) and physical indicators of health (heart rate and rhythms) were evaluated to determine whether exercise can protect against negative outcomes of social and environmental stress in prairie voles.
Prairie voles that exercised on a regular basis displayed reduced depression-related behaviors, indicating that they were better able to cope with stress versus the sedentary group. Physiologically, the voles that exercised regularly also exhibited lower resting heart rates and enhanced autonomic nervous system function, indicating heightened cardiovascular resilience and improved physical health. Although there were some differences between males and females in their response to exercise, overall protective effects were observed in both sexes. The findings demonstrate that voluntary exercise is a strong treatment that lessens the psychological and physical health consequences of chronic stress. Because prairie voles and humans demonstrate similar social behaviors and stress responses, this research has implications for managing stress-related disorders in people.
Learn more about exercise in the prairie vole model:
