Mentor/s:
Jennifer Barreto Estrada, PhD
Co-Mentor:
N/A
Project Title:
BDNF/TrkB signaling pathways in the extinction of morphine place preference
Project Description:
Opioid overdose is one of the main causes of deaths in the United States. However, current pharmacological treatments seek to prevent opioid relapse but lack efficacy in some cases. This highlights the need for new treatment models. Exposure-based therapies in humans aim to replicate drug-associated cues and stimuli in the absence of drug exposure. Extinction training based on conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigms has been used in preclinical models as a potential intervention to treat drug-seeking behaviors but has not been effective at preventing relapse. In male rats, extinction training has shown results in reducing extinction of drug-related behaviors accompanied by an increase in BDNF expression in the hippocampus (HPC). In females, BDNF was increased in the HPC and the ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens (VS/NAc). Since the VS/NAc plays a vital role in the reward system of the brain, this study seeks to determine the signaling pathways associated with BDNF in extinction training. For this study, we have used Western blots for tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB), the BDNF receptor at the cellular membrane, as well as pTrkB, pAKT and pERK for intracellular signaling. Understanding the importance of BDNF and it signaling pathway during the extinction of drug-related behaviors is vital to addressing the current public health crisis caused by maladaptive drug behaviors