Frida Lindberg

I am a researcher at the Department of Animal Biosciences (HBIO), and I also serve as Research Coordinator for the laboratory animal facility at the VH faculty. 

As far back as I can remember, I have been interested in the human body. This interest led me to pursue a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Biomedicine at Uppsala University. During my studies, I became fascinated by research and eventually pursued a PhD at the Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Uppsala University.

I completed my PhD in 2022. My doctoral research focused on a genetically modified mouse model with altered function of the amino acid transporter SLC38A10. I used both behavioural characterization and molecular biological techniques, and developed a particular interest in behaviour over the course of the project.

After completing my PhD, I continued to work with experimental neurobiology and molecular biology in different animal models, and have been at SLU since 2023.

In 2023, I was funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Carl Trygger Foundation, during which I worked with house crickets, investigating how different housing conditions and starvation affected immune parameters (PI: Erika Roman). I subsequently received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Facias Foundation, where I investigated the relationship between learning time and individual differences in decision-making in male rats using a gambling task, with Erika Roman as PI. Since 2025, I have been employed as a researcher at SLU.

I am a researcher with a background in neurobiology, molecular biology, and experimental animal research. My research focuses on individual differences in behaviour and decision-making, with particular interest in the neurobiological mechanisms underlying variation in risk-taking, reward-related processes, and learning.

In my current research, I primarily use an operant behavioural paradigm in rodents, the rat Gambling Task (rGT), to study individual decision-making strategies and their underlying neurobiology. A central focus is to understand why individuals differ in how they make decisions and how these differences are influenced by, for example, dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotransmission.

In the rGT, rats are trained to choose between four different options, each associated with different probabilities of receiving rewards of different sizes (sugar) or punishments in the form of time-outs. The rats develop individual decision-making strategies, allowing subgroups characterized by safe, strategic, and risky strategies to be identified. These strategy groups are then studied in relation to behavioural profiles and underlying neurobiology.