Research at the Wheeler Center
| About the Wheeler Center, continued from home page
Center investigators looking at the genetic variations that influence learning and memory and the molecular targets of addicting drugs, hope to understand what happens to the molecular components of nerve cells when they are exposed to drugs of abuse.
Those analyzing the effects of addicting drugs on the specialized junctions between nerve cells (synapses), seek to explain what happens to synapses when addictive drugs reach the brain's pleasure centers, especially the dopaminergic reward circuitry.
Those
concentrating on the neural circuits involved in addiction
hope to reveal the connections between molecular changes in
nerve cells and drug tolerance, drug-dependence, and drug
self-administration. |
With its innovative and collaborative research
program, the Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction is exploring
and identifying the genetic risk factors and the neural circuits,
that enable drugs of abuse to take command of the brain. By
so doing, Center researchers hope to find ways to strip these
drugs of their addictive power and to find new avenues for
treatment and prevention. 
