John Neumaier, MD, PhD

Personal Statement

​My clinical interests include diagnosis and  psychopharmacology of complex mood and anxiety disorders and psychosis. My research program investigates the molecular neuroscience of behavior using animal models with a focus on the involvement of the serotonin system and the neurocircuitry and plasticity involved in stress and addiction.

My lab uses rat and mouse models to investigate stress and addiction mechanisms. The lab is unusual because we pursue a very broad range of methods, including molecular, cellular, neuroanatomical, and behavioral levels of organization. We have focused on serotonin receptors historically but increasingly we are using novel molecular and genetic tools to dissect the involvement of key neural circuits in behavioral models of stress and/or addiction.

The main strategies include a range of behavioral models, intersectional transgenic and viral-mediated gene transfer manipulations of gene expression, neuropharmacology, engineered receptors (DREADDs), fiber photometry, calcium imaging, two-photon microscopy, RNAseq and RTqPCR (using RiboTag pull-down). We are trying to push the envelope in developing and using methods that allow us very precise manipulations or readouts from specific pathways such as the projections from nucleus accumbens to ventral tegmentum or lateral habenula to dorsal raphe nucleus. We are also exploring the role of microglia, the innate immune cells in the brain, during early stages of drug and alcohol withdrawal in advance of typical activation of neuroinflammation.

Department Affiliations

Other Affiliations

Associate Director, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute

Recent Publications

How omics is revealing new roles for glia in addiction.
(2024 Jun 18)
Glia
Bergkamp DJ, Neumaier JF

Rapid appearance of negative emotion during oral fentanyl self-administration in male and female rats.
(2023 Dec)
Addict Biol 28(12): e13344
Coffey KR, Nickelson WB, Dawkins AJ, Neumaier JF

A unique role for cAMP signaling in microglia during opioid tolerance and withdrawal.
(2024 Jan)
Neuropsychopharmacology 49(1): 331-332
Coffey KR, Neumaier JF

Rapid appearance of negative emotion during oral fentanyl self-administration in male and female rats.
(2023 May 11)
bioRxiv
Coffey KR, Nickelson W, Dawkins AJ, Neumaier JF

A cAMP-Related Gene Network in Microglia Is Inversely Regulated by Morphine Tolerance and Withdrawal.
(2022 Apr)
Biol Psychiatry Glob Open Sci 2(2): 180-189
Coffey KR, Lesiak AJ, Marx RG, Vo EK, Garden GA, Neumaier JF

Show complete publication list »
Edit Profile