Yasmin Zakiniaeiz
Yale University, CT·Neuroscience·Early-career
Women are more vulnerable than men to many causes and consequences of alcohol use. These include greater sensitivity to reward and stress, poorer thinking skills and brain damage, and women with alcohol use disorder (AUD) tend to have worse treatment outcomes.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
Psychology
- Topics
alcohol use disorder
alcoholism
sex differences
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Apr 2031
What they work on
- Measure baseline dopamine D2/3 receptor levels in the prefrontal cortex of men and women with alcohol use disorder and sex-matched controls, using PET imaging with the radiotracer [11C]FLB457.
- Measure prefrontal dopamine release by repeating the [11C]FLB457 PET scan three hours after amphetamine, and compare the drop in tracer binding between sexes and between people with and without AUD.
- Relate prefrontal dopamine release to clinical measures of continued alcohol use, separately in women and men, to identify sex-specific brain-behavior relationships.
- Compare microglia (brain immune cell) levels with PET and white matter tract integrity with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in men and women with AUD versus matched controls, and link both to cognitive function.
- Analyze large archived DTI data from the Human Connectome Project to identify sex differences in patterns of white matter tract integrity.
More about the research
Yet much of what is known about the alcohol-affected brain comes from studies that did not focus on sex differences or that missed key brain regions. This research uses brain imaging to compare women and men with AUD. One project studies dopamine, a chemical messenger, in the prefrontal cortex, the brain's planning and self-control region. The other studies markers of brain damage.
Why it matters
Women with alcohol use disorder often have more brain and cognitive harm and poorer treatment outcomes than men. Finding sex differences in prefrontal dopamine, microglia and white matter could point to treatment targets and strategies tailored by sex. It could also clarify how disordered drinking damages reward circuits and thinking skills.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Rajesh Narendran
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Neuroscience
Test whether hydrocortisone-induced increases in NOP receptors, imaged with the PET tracer [11C]NOP-1A, are smaller in cocaine use disorder than in healthy controls and predict faster relapse over 12 weeks.
Zhude Tu
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research
Track S1PR1 levels over time in macaques with MPTP-induced brain injury using [11C]CS1P1 PET, then verify the scans with autoradiography, antibody staining and ELISA protein assays on brain tissue.
Cecilia Hinojosa
University of New Mexico, NM·Neuroscience·Early-career
Define sex differences in reward-related brain circuitry, including the striatum, that relate to alcohol craving and drinking in trauma-exposed women and men, using functional neuroimaging.
The school
Yale University: 73 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 438 research doctorates a year.
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