Jared Bagley
Binghamton University, NY·Neuroscience·Early-career
Why do some people move from using cocaine to compulsive, escalating use while others do not? Much of that risk is inherited, and the genes involved are thought to act by changing how the brain works.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Genetics
Pharmacology
- Topics
cocaine use disorder
addiction neurogenetics
dopamine
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Test whether mouse strains genetically predisposed to extreme cocaine self-administration differ in baseline and acute cocaine-evoked dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens shell, measured with fast-scan cyclic voltammetry.
- Determine how chronic cocaine intravenous self-administration reshapes dopamine transmission in the nucleus accumbens of high-risk inbred strains, to find genetically determined changes that underlie escalating use.
- Experimentally alter expression of Nav1 (Neuron-navigator-1), a candidate risk gene from genetic mapping, to test its causal effect on dopamine transmission in mice.
More about the research
One key target is dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain's reward circuit that cocaine strongly disrupts. Finding which genetic differences shape dopamine signaling could explain why risk for cocaine use disorder varies so widely between people.
Why it matters
Cocaine use disorder causes serious harm to individuals and society, and personal risk depends heavily on genetics. Showing how inherited risk factors change dopamine signaling could clarify the biology of problematic cocaine use. It could also point to new opportunities for treatment.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Elizabeth Mietlicki-Baase
University at Buffalo, NY·Neuroscience
Test whether activating amylin receptors in the ventral tegmental area suppresses rapid dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens core in response to fat in the mouth, measured with fast-scan cyclic voltammetry.
Eduardo Gallo
Fordham University, NY·Neuroscience
Test whether dopamine D2 receptors on cholinergic interneurons of the nucleus accumbens control impulsive choice, by using cell type-specific genetic tools in mice to both increase and decrease receptor levels and measuring performance on a delay discounting task.
Kenneth Kishida
Wake Forest University, NC·Neuroscience
Test whether the background signal in fast scan cyclic voltammetry recordings, an electrochemical method for measuring neurotransmitters, can be quantitatively characterized, mathematically modeled and subtracted in living-brain experiments.
The school
Binghamton University: 14 labs on PI Pages, $161M a year on research, 132 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.