Kimberly Raab-Graham
Wake Forest University, NC·Neuroscience
Depression and alcohol use disorder (AUD) often occur together. A single drink can briefly lift mood, but long-term heavy drinking makes anxiety and depression worse.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Biochemistry
- Topics
alcohol use disorder
major depressive disorder
depression
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2028
What they work on
- Determine whether acute ethanol changes FMRP, an RNA-binding protein, binding to messenger RNAs for synapse-linking proteins, increases their local synthesis and promotes new synapse formation, using biochemistry, electrophysiology and the DetectSyn assay.
- Test whether the FMRP-regulated antidepressant pathway is suppressed during withdrawal in an alcohol-dependence rodent model, and whether acute ethanol reverses the biochemical and behavioral depressive signs.
- Isolate and sequence FMRP target mRNAs repressed during withdrawal but released by acute ethanol, and use the LINCS computational resource to predict repurposable FDA-approved drugs.
More about the research
People may keep drinking to escape the low mood of withdrawal. Researchers know a lot about alcohol and anxiety, but much less about this low mood. It includes anhedonia, a loss of pleasure. This project asks what happens at synapses, the junctions between neurons, to flip alcohol's effects from mood-lifting to mood-lowering.
Why it matters
Many people with alcohol use disorder also struggle with depression, and low mood during withdrawal may drive continued drinking. Identifying how FMRP-controlled synapse building is muted during withdrawal could reveal new drug targets. Computational screening may point to already-approved drugs that could be repurposed. Such drugs could one day treat negative mood in alcohol-dependent people with depression.
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.
Brian Mathur
University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD·Neuroscience
Determine the circuit-specific synaptic mechanisms by which acute ethanol strengthens GABAergic (inhibitory) input to dorsolateral striatum fast-spiking interneurons (FSIs), using molecular tools and whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology.
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
Wake Forest University: 27 labs on PI Pages, $345M a year on research, 54 research doctorates a year.
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