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Recent Seminar:
Chauncey Leake Memorial
Lecture

Nora D. Volkow,
Director, National Institute
on Drug Abuse
recently presented
"Addiction: Conflict
Between Brain Circuits"
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Mission of the UTMB Center for Addiction
Research
The overall mission of the UTMB Center for Addiction
Research (CAR) is to promote, stimulate and support discovery
and translational research in the etiology and pathophysiology
of addictive processes to design targeted ways to prevent,
diagnose and treat this disorder. The CAR brings to bear
cutting edge technologies in molecular biology, biochemistry,
behavior, pharmacology, genetics, proteomics, and
drug design to discover novel approaches to diagnose, cure or
alleviate addiction and its medical complications. The objectives
are:
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most recent update:
02/03/2010
Did you miss the presentation given by Dr.
Nora Volkow?
This year's Chauncey D.
Leake Memorial Lecturer was Nora D. Volkow,
M.D., Director of the National Institute on
Drug Abuse. The lecture was hosted by the
Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology and
the Center for Addiction Research, and was
held on Friday, January 22, 2010.
Dr. Volkow
became Director of the National Institute on
Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes
of Health in May 2003, and her work has been
instrumental in demonstrating that drug
addiction is a disease of the human brain.
Volkow is a pioneer in the use of PET and
MRI imaging to study drug addiction’s
effects on the brain.
Click the link below to view a copy of the
presentation given by Dr. Volkow.
mms://medtest.utmb.edu/OUA/Events/Dr.NoraVolkow1-22-10.wmv
Partying warning for pregnant women: Alcohol
and cigarettes hurt the unborn child
Birth defects from drinking and from smoking
while pregnant are among the most
preventable, yet they are among the most
devastating and costly. While it’s one thing
to tell women to stop, it’s quite another
for some to do it. According to Mahmoud
Ahmed, director of UTMB’s laboratory of
maternal and fetal pharmacology, once you
become a nicotine addict or an alcoholic,
“it’s a whole different story.” He says
addicted smokers are particularly hard
cases. UTMB researcher Tatiana Nanovskaya is
trying to find out if drugs like Zyban that
help people stop smoking might harm the
fetus. At a laboratory located down the hall
from the delivery room at UTMB’s John Sealy
Hospital, researchers receive a mother’s
placenta just moments after birth. The
researchers then attach tubes to the
placenta, mimicking the flow of blood, and
inject the drugs to see how much passes
through the placenta, which provides food
and oxygen to the fetus. Depending on what
they find, doctors might eventually start
prescribing the stop-smoking drugs to
pregnant women. The video begins at the 3:27
mark.
See Video.
Hormones may cause neuro gender variations
UPI.com (United Press International), June 15, 2009
A study by UTMB’s Rebecca Alyea and Cheryl Watson suggests that estrogens affect the body’s dopamine transporter, thereby explaining women’s susceptibility to some neurological diseases. The study originally was published in BMC Neuroscience.
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$3.4 million
boosts addiction recovery research
New therapies also
may benefit compulsive eaters
OCT. 25,
2007--Men and women addicted to alcohol or
drugs who want to recover but struggle with
relapses may have help on the way following
this month’s $3.4 million boost to support
recovery-focused studies at the UTMB
Center for Addiction Research. Funding
from the
National Institute on Drug Abuse will
advance ongoing research into brain
serotonin systems and new therapies that may
improve the long-term prospects of patient
recovery.
The new research
focuses on how brain serotonin systems
contribute to the development of addiction
and relapse. The results will provide the
foundation for “personalized” therapies in
addictive disorders. There may also be
benefits for compulsive overeaters.
“We believe that neuronal recovery in
serotonin systems will lead to behavioral
recovery in addiction, and jump start a new
generation of discovery for anti-addiction
and potentially, anti-obesity therapeutics,”
said Kathryn A. Cunningham who directs the
center and is the principal investigator.
Read more
NIH
Institute Supports National Drunk
and Drugged Driving Prevention Month
Free Educational Materials on
Substance Abuse Available
The
holiday season often brings thoughts
of festive times with friends and
family, but the last few weeks of
the year are not always happy—they
also can be dangerous. The number of
alcohol-related traffic crashes
increases during this period, and
the National Institute on Drug Abuse
(NIDA), part of the National
Institutes of Health, offers FREE
information on substance abuse to
consumers and educators.
to get free information
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Special Message from the
Office of Science Policy & Communications
I am pleased to inform you
that our Research Training Brochure has recently been
updated. The brochure is a 20-page booklet that summarizes
NIDA funding opportunities related to training and career
development. It includes a chart and links that are helpful
for career planning, and useful at all stages of career
development. This updated version was debuted at this year’s
CPDD meeting in Quebec City, Canada, where it was
enthusiastically received. While printed copies are
available upon request, and are distributed annually at the
CPDD and SfN conferences, an online PDF version is
immediately available for viewing and downloading (http://www.nida.nih.gov/pdf/ResearchTraining/ResearchTrainingBroch.pdf).
Please share this information with your trainees, fellows,
and others in your department or center who might find this
brochure useful.
Mimi M Ghim, PhD
Deputy Research Training
Coordinator
most recent update:
02/03/2010
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