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Dr. Griggs (nee Butler) received her B.A. in Psychology from Wittenberg University in 2006 and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience and Psychopharmacology from the University of Kentucky in 2011. During the three years prior to joining the UD faculty, Tracy completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Wake Forest University School of Medicine while working with Dr. Jeff Weiner in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology.

Dr. Griggs' previous body of research explored relationships between alcohol, stress and the brain using preclinical rat models, but since Fall 2023 she began running a research lab using human subjects to study such relationships. The current aims of the lab are to explore biological correlates of stress and their relationship to motivation for alcohol and/or negative affective states. Her previous preclinical work examined the effects of long-term alcohol exposure and withdrawal on neuronal cell death, as well as the effects of early life stress on alcohol intake and preference. Then, while at UD, Dr. Griggs' research was aimed at discovering the environmental and physiological factors (e.g. stress, early alcohol exposure, sex, social factors) that predict high levels of alcohol consumption.

Courses taught

• PSY 101: Introductory Psychology
• PSY 422: Biopsychology
• PSY 480: Senior Seminar: Alcohol, Brain, and Behavior
• PSY 495: Special Topics: Psychopharmacology
• PSY 496: Capstone: Drugs, Brain and Behavior

Professional activities

• Research Society on Alcoholism, member
• Ohio Miami Valley Society for Neuroscience, UD representative

Selected publications

(previously published under name TR Butler)

*indicates undergraduate student co-author; **indicates graduate student co-author

*Lynch CA, Porter B, and Butler TR (2019) Access to voluntary running wheel exercise: Prevention of anxiety-like behavior in chronically stressed rats, but potentiation of ethanol intake/preference. Physiology & Behavior, 206: 118-124.

Roeckner AR, Bowling A, and Butler TR (2017) Chronic social instability increases anxiety-like behavior and ethanol preference in male Long Evans rats. Physiology & Behavior, 173: 179-187.

Butler TR, Karkhanis A, Jones SR, and Weiner JL (2016) Adolescent social isolation as a model of heightened vulnerability to comorbid alcoholism and anxiety disorders. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 40(6):1202-14

Selected presentations

*indicates undergraduate student co-author; **indicates graduate student co-author

*Deel C, *Fisher S, & Griggs TR (2023) A Preclinical Model to Study the Relationship Between Alcohol Intake and Voluntary Exercise in Females. Stander Symposium (University of Dayton, Dayton, OH) & Ohio Miami Valley Society for Neuroscience summer meeting (Miami University, June 2023).

*Schulze M (2021) Investigating running behavior in female rats. Roesch Social Sciences Symposium, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio.

**Wilson, B., Butler, T.R., & O’Mara Kunz, E. (2021, February). Does religious affiliation predict scientific literacy? Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Virtual meeting.

**Porter B, *Lynch CA, & Butler TR. (2019). Access to voluntary running wheel exercise prevents development of anxiety-like behavior but potentiates ethanol intake in group housed rats. Midwestern Psychological Association annual meeting, Chicago.

*Peterson HJ, **Porter B, & Butler TR. (2018). An abbreviated alcohol deprivation effect model of relapse behavior in male and female Long Evans rats. Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, San Diego. 

*Griff PM, *Schleper A, *Lynch CA, Sun Y, & Butler TR. (2018). Chronic administration of probiotic L. rhamnosus affects anxiety-like behavior in a model of alcohol use disorder vulnerability. Research Society on Alcoholism annual meeting, San Diego.

*Roeckner AR **Bowling A, & Butler TR. (2016). Chronic social instability stress increases anxiety-like behavior and ethanol intake/preference in male but not female Long Evans rats. Research Society on Alcoholism annual meeting, New Orleans. 

Butler TR, Carter E, & Weiner JL. (2014). Social isolation and ethanol self-administration: Disparate behavioral phenotypes in male and female rats. Research Society on Alcoholism annual meeting, Bellevue, Wash.