Prolonged exposure to opioids causes an enhanced sensitivity to painful stimuli (opioid-induced hyperalgesia, OIH) and a need for increased opioid doses to maintain analgesia (opioid-induced tolerance, OIT), but the mechanisms underlying both processe…
Opioid use disorder is a chronic, relapsing disease associated with persistent changes in brain plasticity. A common single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the µ-opioid receptor gene, OPRM1 A118G, is associated with altered vulnerability to opi…
It is well established that, during neural circuit development, glutamatergic synapses become strengthened via NMDA receptor (NMDAR)-dependent upregulation of AMPA receptor (AMPAR)-mediated currents. In addition, however, it is known that the neuromod…
Internal models are essential for the production of accurate movements. The accuracy of saccadic eye movements is thought to be mediated by an internal model of oculomotor mechanics encoded in the cerebellum. The cerebellum may also be part of a feedb…
Mixed pathologies are common in neurodegenerative disease; however, antemortem imaging rarely captures copathologic effects on brain atrophy due to a lack of validated biomarkers for non-Alzheimer’s pathologies. We leveraged a dataset comprising…
Scientists have long conjectured that the neocortex learns patterns in sensory data to generate top-down predictions of upcoming stimuli. In line with this conjecture, different responses to pattern-matching vs pattern-violating visual stimuli have be…
White matter dysmaturation is commonly seen in preterm infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Animal research has shown that active sleep is essential for early brain plasticity. This study aimed to determine the potential of act…
The molecular clock that generates daily rhythms of behavior and physiology consists of interlocked transcription–translation feedback loops. In Drosophila, the primary feedback loop involving the CLOCK-CYCLE transcriptional activators and the P…
The impact of dopamine on synaptic plasticity and cognitive function following seizure is not well understood. Here, using optogenetics in the freely behaving animal, we examined exploratory behavior and short-term memory in control and kindled male m…
The mesolimbic dopamine system is a crucial component of reward and reinforcement processing, including the psychotropic effects of drugs of abuse such as cocaine. Drugs of abuse can activate intracellular signaling cascades that engender long-term mo…