Rebecca Hofford
Wake Forest University, NC·Neuroscience·Early-career
Most people who develop a drug addiction start using drugs as teenagers. During adolescence, the brain changes, especially the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a region that holds back motivated urges.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
opioid use disorder
substance use disorder
addiction
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Aug 2026
What they work on
- Test how depleting the gut microbiome in adolescent versus adult mice changes fentanyl self-administration, a measure of how strongly the drug reinforces drug-taking.
- Determine whether short-chain fatty acids, fiber breakdown products made by gut bacteria, drive the microbiome's effects on opioid reinforcement in adolescent mice.
- Examine how gut-derived short-chain fatty acids alter chromatin modifications and gene expression in the medial prefrontal cortex of opioid-exposed adolescent mice.
More about the research
The community of gut bacteria, the gut microbiome, is also shifting at this age. The project asks whether the changing gut helps explain why adolescents are especially vulnerable to opioid addiction.
Why it matters
Adolescence is a sensitive period for developing addiction, and opioid use is a major concern. Learning how gut bacteria and their short-chain fatty acids shape adolescent opioid taking and brain gene regulation could reveal factors behind teenagers' heightened vulnerability. This may eventually inform prevention or treatment strategies.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Erbo Dong
Ohio State University, OH·Neuroscience
Determine whether PP1a, an enzyme that promotes HDAC4 build-up in the nucleus, drives the ethanol preference, tolerance and anxiety-like behavior seen in adult mouse offspring of prenatally stressed mothers.
Catherine Cahill
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Neuroscience
Determine whether the dynorphin–kappa opioid receptor system in the central amygdala is necessary and sufficient for negative reinforcement, meaning opioid taking to relieve a negative state, in mouse models of chronic pain.
Linnea Freeman
Furman University, SC·Neuroscience
Test whether disrupting the gut microbiome in adulthood increases hedonic feeding more in female than male rats, using a behavioral economics task with a high-fat, palatable reward.
The school
Wake Forest University: 27 labs on PI Pages, $345M a year on research, 54 research doctorates a year.
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