Roger Nicoll

Members & Research Interests

"Addiction can be thought of as a extremely powerful, though maladaptive, form of learning. By joining the Wheeler Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction, I hope to integrate what have previously been thought of as two separate fields of study -- addiction research and learning research -- to the benefit of both areas."

Roger Nicoll
Professor, Physiology and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology
Lawrence University, BS (Biology and Chemistry), 1963
University of Rochester, MD, 1968
E: nicoll@phy.ucsf.edu

My laboratory studies the synaptic effects of some of the body's own reward chemicals, particularly opioid peptides and endocannabinoids, in the hippocampus, a region of the brain known to be involved in several important forms of learning and memory. Because drug abuse and addiction can be viewed as forms of learned behavior, it is our goal to determine how the impact of acute and chronic use of these opioids and cannabinoids on learning and memory is affected by the actions of individual synaptic proteins.

Much of our work is related to the cellular basis of synaptic plasticity and we are currently studying the control of trafficking of glutamate receptors to synapses. Since similar mechanisms appear to be also found in regions directly involved in drug addiction, we believe that our finding will be applicable to understanding the cellular mechanisms of drug addiction.

Wheeler Center Members