Infection by West Nile Virus can lead to encephalitis, or harmful inflammation of the brain. The immune system is critical for controlling viral replication and spread early in West Nile Virus infection, but persistent immune activation causes encephalitis that can result in brain damage even after the virus has been cleared. Recent pharmacologic advances have […]
Schizophrenia is a common and devastating neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by genetic heterogeneity. In this project, genes that are disrupted by rare, damaging mutations in individuals with schizophrenia will be evaluated using CRISPRi in iPSCs. Cell lines will be evaluated for phenotypes relevant to schizophrenia. A patient-derived iPSC line will be created that harbors a mutation […]
This project aims to examine health disparities in substance use and factors influencing the health and well-being of Latinx youth residing in rural and small-town communities of the United States, a growing but understudied and underserved population.
This project involves analyses of data from the Washington State Young Adult Health Study to examine the impact of cannabis legalization on cannabis-related risk factors, substance use, and related health risk behaviors such as driving while intoxicated, and to study developmental trajectories of substance use and the role of community level and other cannabis-specific risk […]
This project examines marijuana-specific self-regulation processes in relation to marijuana use and consequences both across days and throughout the day to identify how psychological states and contextual factors influence these self-regulation processes using an EMA design with surveys four times a day for two weeks.
Extensive opioid use and repeated abstinence increases the likelihood of severe withdrawal and contributes to the risk of relapse. Previously we found that microglia, the innate immune cells in the brain, have dramatic changes in gene expression and signaling during opioid tolerance and withdrawal. We propose to use fentanyl and a recently developed transgenic mice to […]
The main goals of this proposal are twofold: 1) to develop and optimize a general behavioral and technical platform for studying the functional neurocircuitry underlying opioid use disorder, and 2) to determine if activity in LHb projections to the RMTg promotes cued reinstatement to fentanyl seeking through indirect inhibition of VTA dopamine neurons.
Opioid abuse has reached epidemic proportions in the United States and is responsible for more than 40,000 overdose deaths each year. Avoidance of withdrawal and drug-associated cues are key deterrents to voluntary abstinence in humans. By studying the neural circuits responsible for motivating avoidance of physical and emotional pain, as well as those that process […]
We aim to determine the accuracy and specificity of Arterial spin labeling (ASL) — a non‐invasive perfusion technique used in MRI to track cerebral blood flow — in measuring vascular and glial‐dependent water transfer to establish whether it is a valuable clinical tool in Alzheimer’s disease. This simple and safe technique, already approved for use […]
The COBRA study seeks to identify the specific neural circuits that are altered in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our experiments test the strength of “divisive normalization”, a measure that describes how neurons in the brain suppress each other. Our hypothesis is that suppressive interactions are reduced in individuals with ASD. Because suppressive neural interactions are […]
