Marina Picciotto
Yale University, CT·Neuroscience
Addiction involves more than the brain's pleasure chemistry. In nicotine and alcohol use, cues tied to the drug, and stress and negative feelings, can take control of behavior and drive continued use and relapse.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Psychology
- Topics
nicotine addiction
alcohol use disorder
substance use disorders
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2030
What they work on
- Define the role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in a ventral tegmental area to ventral pallidum GABA circuit and a medial septum to basolateral amygdala acetylcholine circuit that boost responding for rewards and reward-paired cues in mice.
- Explore acetylcholine inputs to VTA-to-VP GABA neurons, and test whether the two circuits interact to promote cue-reward behaviors.
- Identify nicotine-driven protein changes in the basolateral amygdala using proteomics, to find signaling pathways behind nicotine-induced brain plasticity.
- Test how the PDE4 inhibitor apremilast changes the interaction between stress and alcohol intake in male and female mice, using a stress-induced 'drinking-in-the-dark' binge drinking paradigm.
- Identify signaling pathways recruited by PDE4 inhibition that regulate drinking, and test whether a GLP1 agonist, which raises cAMP, mimics apremilast's effects on stress-induced drinking.
More about the research
These projects use mice to trace the brain circuits and molecular signals behind two such processes. One is how nicotine makes other rewards feel stronger. The other is how stress drives drinking, especially in females.
Why it matters
Nicotine drives vaping and tobacco smoking, the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, and problem drinking is rising, with stress playing an especially strong role in women. Identifying the brain circuits and signaling pathways involved could provide new targets for treating nicotine addiction. It could also guide medications such as PDE4 inhibitors or GLP1 agonists, possibly in combination, that help women in particular reduce stress-related drinking.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jocelyn Richard
University of Minnesota, MN·Neuroscience
Test whether separate neurons in the ventral pallidum encode the incentive value of reward cues versus the expected value of outcomes, using in vivo single-unit electrophysiology to record individual neurons during cue presentations.
Stephan Lammel
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Neuroscience
Test whether neurotensin signaling in the pathway from the lateral nucleus accumbens to the VTA drives hedonic feeding in mice, using optogenetics, NTS receptor blockers and a new neurotensin sensor that measures release in vitro and in vivo.
Samuel Centanni
Wake Forest University, NC·Neuroscience
Test whether stress-driven activity in the insula-BNST pathway predicts later binge and aversion-resistant ethanol drinking, following mouse models of stress and binge drinking over time.
The school
Yale University: 73 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 438 research doctorates a year.
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