Gül Dölen

Gül Dölen is a Turkish-American neuroscientist known for studying social behavior, psychedelic drugs, and critical periods.

As an MD–PhD student at Brown University and later at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dölen studied fragile X syndrome and identified a possible treatment target.

As a postdoctoral fellow under Robert Malenka, Dölen found that the hormones oxytocin and serotonin interact with the brain's nucleus accumbens to produce good feelings from social interactions ("social rewards") in mice.

In 2018, Dölen co-authored a paper that found that octopuses, which are normally anti-social, became more social after exposure to the psychoactive drug MDMA, which acts on a serotonin pathway The research suggests that there is a common genetic basis of social behavior across much of the animal kingdom.

Dölen's recent research, published 2019–2023 in the journal Nature, examines the power of psychedelic drugs like MDMA in re-opening the critical period in social reward learning. In subsequent interviews and lectures, Dölen has argued that this post-acute window represents an underutilized therapeutic opportunity, comparing it to recovery after major surgery and suggesting that integration support during this period should receive greater clinical attention.

Selected publications