Our focus is on the molecular and brain circuit mechanisms behind substance use and mood-related disorders. 

Projects include: 

• Examining how calcium signaling in the brain affects behaviors related to cocaine and mood disorders.  
• Understanding how genetics influence addiction and mental health conditions.  
• How the brain’s endocannabinoid and opioid systems interact. The team is currently testing whether targeting the endocannabinoid system can reduce the rewarding effects of opioids without affecting pain relief. 

Ultimately, our goal is to help develop better treatments for addiction and related conditions. 

We’re investigating the biological and behavioral reasons why people continue to seek out drugs, even after they have stopped using them for a long time. This behavior may be directly caused by long-term drug use making changes to the brain. These changes, called neuroadaptations, may make it hard for people to fully recover from addiction.  

Our researchers aim to understand the various factors, including RNA and protein networks, that support drug-seeking behavior. Our goal is to discover new ways to prevent relapse and help people stay drug-free for good. 

Our lab investigates how the brain controls learning and decision making.

The brain has two strategies for controlling what we do.  

• Goal-directed behavior involves thinking ahead about the consequences of our actions. It’s a flexible strategy but is mentally demanding.  
• Habitual behavior happens automatically, based on past success. It is less flexible but saves mental energy.  

We explore the brain circuits that control the shift between these strategies and how factors like stress, drug use and genetics can affect these circuits. By using behavioral studies along with advanced neuroimaging and optogenetic techniques, this research helps to understand these processes. Our goal is to discover insights into a variety of conditions such as addiction, autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). 

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Our lab studies how stress and a hormone called CRF (corticotropin-releasing factor) affect the brain's serotonin system, a key player in anxiety, depression and drug relapse. 

Because stress can trigger relapse in individuals recovering from substance use disorders, we are investigating how stress disrupts serotonin neural circuits, leading to negative moods that drive drug use for "self-medication” purposes.  

We also are studying: 

• Serotonin's role in alcohol and opioid use.  
• The role cannabinoids and immune molecules in the brain have during addiction. 

 We employ sophisticated methods such as chemogenetics and in vivo fiber photometry to monitor neural activity underlying emotional states linked to drug-seeking behavior. 

We’re researching how the brain forms connections between events and environmental stimuli and how these connections can go wrong in diseases.  

We use systems neuroscience as well as computational and behavioral approaches to understand how complex behaviors are represented in the brain. Our lab focuses on three main goals:  

• Understanding how the brain responds to rewarding versus negative experiences. 
• Figuring out how memories of rewards and negative events become persistent and harmful. 
• Investigating how organisms learn by observing and interacting with others.  

Through this work, we aim to better understand how the brain controls behavior and how these processes relate to conditions such as anxiety, stress disorders, autism and substance use disorders.

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Our lab studies kappa opioid receptor (KOR) activators, potential pain relievers without the negative side effects of traditional opioids. While they may offer promise, they do cause unwanted effects such as dysphoria, sedation and hallucinations.

We aim to understand the beneficial and harmful effects of these activators on the brain and body. Our research focuses on identifying KOR agonists with reduced side effects and characterizing KOR’s role in brain circuits. By using advanced genetic and behavioral tools such as Cre recombinase-mediated genetic manipulations and reward-related behavioral assays, we seek comprehensive understanding of KOR’s functions in the brain. 

We study how drugs like cocaine, opioids and synthetic cathinones (aka “bath salts”) impact the brain. We seek to understand the role that certain brain proteins, particularly GLT-1, play in substance use disorders. Our research has shown that clavulanic acid, an FDA-approved drug, can increase GLT-1 activity and reduce addiction-related effects of opioids and psychostimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine.

Our second focus is investigating how therapies that target immune molecules such as interleukins and chemokines can help reduce mood-related behaviors like depression and anxiety and drug-related effects, such as physical dependence. These studies offer new insights into potential treatments for substance use disorders and related mental health conditions. 

We study how substance use disorders affect the brain at the cellular and molecular level.

We focus on how drugs like cocaine, amphetamines, morphine and heroin cause changes in the brain. These areas include specific brain receptors, signaling pathways and transcription factors. These changes play a crucial role in how addiction develops and progresses, including tolerance, dependence, sensitization, withdrawal and craving.

By using a combination of behavioral, cellular and molecular techniques, we explore how brain changes impact these addiction-related behaviors. We aim to uncover the biological mechanisms behind addiction so better treatments can be developed. 

We research the role that cannabinoid, serotonin and opioid receptor systems play in controlling pain as well as impacting substance use disorders. Specifically, we are exploring the therapeutic potential of cannabinoid-based compounds for neuropathic pain and addiction.  

Our lab was the first to demonstrate that cannabidiol (CBD), a plant-based cannabinoid, effectively prevents neuropathic pain. And we discovered that combining tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) with CBD enhances this benefit.  

Utilizing behavioral, molecular and genetic approaches, we also are examining cannabinoid-opioid interactions that will reduce pain and inflammation. Our team’s groundbreaking findings have led to clinical trials with hemp-derived CBD for pain relief and are contributing to the development of future treatments for brain injuries and addiction.