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Behavioral Neurosciences Research Laboratory |
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| Bryan Singer Graduate Student, Committee on Neurobiology |
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I am conducting anatomical, molecular, and behavioral experiments to study the neuronal plasticity underlying psychostimulant sensitization. Repeated exposure to psychostimulants such as amphetamine leads to an enhancement of their behavioral and biochemical effects, known as sensitization. The expression of behavioral sensitization may come under strong conditioned stimulus control so that sensitized responding is only apparent when animals are tested in the presence of environmental stimuli previously paired with the drug. My research aims to isolate neuroadaptations corresponding to either sensitization or conditioning phenotypes. To do so, I compare the anatomical, behavioral, and biochemical consequences of repeated systemic or ventral tegmental area (VTA) injections of amphetamine. This comparison is useful because, while exposure to repeated systemic amphetamine produces both sensitization and conditioning, VTA amphetamine exposure produces sensitization in the absence of conditioning. |
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Papers: Singer, B.F., Tanabe, L.M., Gorny, G., Jake-Matthews, C., Li, Y., Kolb, B., Vezina, P., (2009) Amphetamine-Induced Changes in Dendritic Morphology in Rat Forebrain Correspond to Associative Drug Conditioning Rather than Nonassociative Drug Sensitization. Biological Psychiatry, 2009; 65: 835-840. Singer, B.F., Kolb, B., Vezina, P. (2008) Repeated exposure to systemic or VTA amphetamine produces sensitization but different effects on conditioning and dendritic morphology in rat forebrain. Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. |
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The University of Chicago Medical Center Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neurosciences 5841 S. Maryland Ave., MC 3077 Chicago, IL 60637-1470 |
| Last Update: October 27, 2009 |