For UNC BBSP Graduate Students
Hodge Lab rotation opportunity: Preclinical behavioral neuroscience of alcohol and drug abuse
Research in the Hodge Lab takes a discovery-to-mechanistic approach to identify neural targets of alcohol and other drugs of abuse that, in turn, functionally regulate behavioral pathologies associated with addiction. We also seek to elucidate how alcohol use exacerbates neural and behavioral pathology associated with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Studies in mice will offer specific experience in rigorous behavioral analysis (operant alcohol self-administration, locomotor activity and sensitization, conditioned reward, anxiety, and cognitive testing, etc) combined with measurement of protein and gene expression (protein: immunoblots and immunohistochemistry; genes: RT-PCR, whole transcriptome analysis). Mechanistic approaches (mouse genetic models, systemic and brain site-specific pharmacology, AAV, and planned CRISPR techniques) are utilized to evaluate functional (behavioral) significance of alcohol-induced changes in the brain.
The Hodge Lab is located in the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies (https://www.med.unc.edu/alcohol/). Our lab is highly collaborative and dynamic, innovative, and team-based. We are looking for students who have an interest in understanding how alcohol and other drugs hijack reward pathways to produce addiction and other behavioral problems with the goal of translating this information into potential pharmacological therapeutics.
If you are interested in a potential rotation, please contact Clyde Hodge (chodge@med.unc.edu).