Our understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying fear, trauma, and the development of related disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are incomplete. Thus, the search for players in the game continues. Among the brain regions identified as exhibiting maladaptive changes/activity in PTSD, the amygdala appears to serve an important role in the acquisition and expression […]
CSI-04: Effects of Acute Early Life Stress and CRH2 Receptor Antagonism on Anxiety in Adult Rats
After undergoing an early life stress (ELS) event, susceptibility to fear and anxiety-related disorders becomes more common. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and generalized anxiety disorder are often precipitated by ELS experience and can negatively impact one’s life and ability to function. An established reciprocal neural circuit between serotonergic neurons of the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) […]
A01: Anxiety Sensitivity and Blackouts: Exploring the Impact of Drinking Motives and Gender Experiences in College-Aged Students
Anxiety sensitivity is the fear that anxiety symptoms are indicative of greater harm, and is a risk factor for heavy alcohol use and substance use disorders. In existing research, there are gaps on the exact alcohol-related consequences and how anxiety sensitivity may be related to those consequences. One important gap is the link between anxiety […]
A03: What Does It Take to Change? Negative Drinking Consequences and Willingness to Change Drinking Behavior in College Students
College student alcohol consumption remains a serious health problem despite frequent intervention and research. Excessive alcohol consumption among college students has been linked to various negative outcomes such as missing class, unsafe sex, accidental injury, assaults, and death (Hingson et al., 2009; White & Hingson, 2014). In a study of college students, more than half […]
A22: Impact of Nicotine and Alcohol Individually and Concurrently in ChAT-MOR Knockout Mice
Alcohol and nicotine are common substances that impact individuals individually and concurrently. This project aims to investigate the impact of nicotine and alcohol in ChAT-MOR mice individually and concurrently. Nicotine and ethanol both affect dopamine release through different mechanisms. We are specifically studying the impact of cholinergic interneurons on dopamine release within the striatum. CHAT-MOR […]
C14: The Effects of Early Life Stress on Alcohol Drinking Behavior in Mice
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a complex psychiatric disorder affected by both genetic and environmental factors (Mayfield et al., 2008; Tawa et al., 2016; Young-Wolff et al., 2011). One such environmental variable that strongly correlates to the development of AUD and alcohol abuse is early life stress (ELS) (Guinle & Sinha, 2020; Sinha, 2001). ELS […]
C35: The Effects of Sex and Early Life Stress on Conditioned Inhibition of Fear in Rodents
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition that occurs in a subset of individuals who experience one or more traumatic events. It is marked by recurrent memories of the traumatic event, heightened anxiety states, altered mood, and avoidance behaviors. Importantly, adverse early childhood experiences yield increased vulnerability to the development of PTSD later in […]
B49: The Relation Between Sensory Input and Alcohol Drinking Patterns in College Students
According to a national survey, almost 53% of full-time college students ages 18 to 22 drank alcohol in the past month and about 33% engaged in binge drinking during that same time frame. Unhealthy drinking habits are on a rise and despite the efforts implemented by schools, just under 2,000 college students die a year […]
C11: Testing a Novel Ligand for Non-dreadd Mediated Effects
The aim of this study is to lay the foundation for the development of a novel paradigm to study the effects of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) released from the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) on fear and anxiety responses in rodents. The BNST is a stress-responsive, sexually dimorphic brain region and repeated, low-level activation […]
B19: Examining Sex Differences in Ethanol Consumption Using the Four Core Genotypes Model
Previous research has shown that female rodents have higher rates of alcohol consumption than males, but the mechanisms underlying these behavioral differences have yet to be uncovered. Here, we used the Four Core Genotype mouse model along with Intermittent Access to evaluate the effects of gonadal hormones and sex chromosomes on drinking habits. Four Core […]