Jonathan Hommel
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, TX·Neuroscience
Cocaine use disorder (CUD), a long-term pattern of compulsive cocaine use, has no medication approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help treatment succeed.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Psychology
- Topics
cocaine use disorder
addiction
substance use disorder
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Test whether a GABA pathway running from the dorsal raphe nucleus to the nucleus accumbens converges on the ventral pallidum, a reward and motivation center, to control cocaine taking, using transsynaptic tracing to map connections between neurons.
- Determine how switching GABA neurons in this circuit on or off changes the motivation to take cocaine, using GABA-specific DREADDs (engineered receptors controlled by a designer drug) together with behavioral economics measures.
- Evaluate neuromedin U receptor 2 (NMUR2), a G-protein coupled receptor that regulates this pathway, as a possible druggable target for medications to treat cocaine use disorder.
More about the research
Cocaine use and overdose deaths involving cocaine have both risen in recent years. This project looks for new drug targets by mapping the brain circuits that feed into a region called the ventral pallidum (VP). The VP handles reward and motivation and may act as a "final common pathway" for cocaine taking.
Why it matters
People with cocaine use disorder have no approved medications to support counseling-based treatment, while cocaine overdose deaths keep rising. By identifying a brain circuit that controls cocaine seeking and a receptor, NMUR2, that drugs could act on, this work could point to new medications that help people avoid relapse and stay abstinent longer.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Christian Bravo-Rivera
University of Puerto Rico-Medical Sciences, PR·Neuroscience
Characterize how nucleus accumbens neurons and astrocytes encode the learning and expression of approach/avoidance conflict, using calcium fiber photometry in mice performing the platform-mediated avoidance task.
Leanne Holt
Temple University, PA·Neuroscience·Early-career
Rescue neuronal underactivity with DREADDs, engineered receptors that switch on chosen cells, while recording astrocyte calcium signals during cocaine self-administration in rodents.
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.
The school
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston: 14 labs on PI Pages, $241M a year on research, 141 research doctorates a year.
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