vanderbilt center for addiction research

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Understanding the molecules and brain circuits recruited by stressful experience

Stressful experiences can lead to adaptive or detrimental behaviors. Understanding how stress can affect our brains can help understand basic brain function and is also essential to discerning causes and treatments for some diseases. A group of researchers led by Jeffrey Conn, professor of pharmacology at Vanderbilt, explored how specific types of neurons within the prefrontal cortex, the brain area involved in decision-making, mood, and motivation, responded to acute stress in models. They found that one type of inhibitory neuron was persistently activated after acute stress, and this research implicated a receptor that has been targeted by the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (WCNDD) for drug development.


Modulating stress circuits

Danny Winder, PhD, and colleagues reported in The Journal of Neuroscience that acute restraint stress in mice activates CRF neurons in the BNST, supporting a role for these neurons in stress-related behaviors.


Women’s hormones play role in drug addiction, higher relapse rates

Women’s hormonal cycles may not only make them more prone to drug addiction but also more affected by triggers that lead to relapse, a new Vanderbilt University study revealed.


Four researchers receive Young Investigator Grants

Four Vanderbilt University researchers are among 200 recipients of this year’s Young Investigator Grants awarded by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation to support “innovative ideas for groundbreaking neurobiological research.”