Laboratory in Affective Neuroscience and Epigenetics (J. Gewirtz)

Broadly speaking, our lab uses rodent models to investigate biological mechanisms underlying negative affective states and drug dependence. Opioids are the most potent of addictive drugs and the primary cause of the epidemic in overdose deaths associated with substance use disorders. The major emphasis of our current research is in understanding the ways in which epigenetic regulation of gene expression is altered by opioid exposure and other environmental events to produce the “addicted brain”. Such epigenetic mechanisms presumably underlie not only the long-term changes in affective states and behavior that are characteristic of addiction and other mental health disorders, but also individual differences in vulnerability to acquiring these disorders and in their persistence once acquired. To this end, our research makes use of Next-Generation and Third-Generation Sequencing tools to identify genome-wide alterations in gene expression and underlying regulatory mechanisms associated with an animal’s propensity to exhibit addictive behavior or the risk of future addictive behavior.