People

Zenya Brown,
PhD, Psychology

Zenya is using an animal model of relapse, known as the reinstatement procedure, to study the neurobiological substrates of relapse to drug seeking and, more specifically, the relationship between stress and relapse to drugs. Zenya’s research extends from previous work demonstrating critical roles for brain catecholamine (noradrenaline and dopamine) and stress-related neuropeptide (i.e., corticotropin releasing factor [CRF]) systems in stress-induced reinstatement of drug seeking in rats. In her current work, Zenya is studying how catecholamines interact with CRF to influence reinstatement of cocaine seeking after prolonged drug-free periods.

Sarah Johnson,
PhD, Psychology

Conditioned associations of drug experience with the context in which it occurred are maintained after drug use ceases. The persistence of these associations poses a risk for relapse, given that even a brief exposure to drug-related contextual cues has been shown to provoke craving in recovering cocaine addicts. Sarah is interested in the influence that Pavlovian drug-context associations have on behavior, and what neuroanatomical substrates correspond to behavioral change induced by the formation of these associations. Sarah is also interested in how the formation of Pavlovian drug-context associations might produce long-lasting changes in neuronal dendritic morphology within the amygdala, a brain region strongly implicated in appetitive cue conditioning. Finally, Sarah is interested in determining whether the changes she is assessing are the same or different at different times after termination of drug exposure.

Dave Kupferschmidt,
PhD, Psychology

Dave is studying the effects of two endogenous neurochemical systems that have been strongly linked to the central regulation of the mammalian stress response. One system, a recently discovered peptide system known as the teneurin c-terminal associated peptides (TCAP), has been shown to modulate the stress-related effects of another important stress-related neuropeptide, corticotropin releasing factor (CRF). The other, the endocannabinoid system, has also been found to overlap with CRF systems in the central nervous system to regulate behavioral and neurochemical responses to stress. Dave is interested in how TCAP and the endocannabinoids interact with central CRF systems to alter cocaine- and anxiety-related behaviors in rats.