Brain Circuits Promoting Abstinence And Preventing Relapse To Alcohol Seeking
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$591,995.00
Summary
This project maps and manipulates the brain circuits that promote abstinence from alcohol use. It uses new techniques from neuroscience to control the activity of specific cell types in discrete brain circuits. In this way we can alter the activity of these circuits to build on the normal neural restorative processes that occur during abstinence from alcohol use to reduce, and possibly prevent, relapse.
A New Therapeutic Target For Stress-related Relapse
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$685,266.00
Summary
Relapse and hazardous drinking represent the most difficult clinical problems in treating patients with alcohol use disorders. We have identified a novel system in the brain for the regulation of stress-induced relapse. Successful completion of this project will indicate improved pharmacotherapeutic strategies for the treatment of alcoholism and drug abuse. Given the scale and costs of substance abuse disorders, improved therapeutic approaches will have immediate and sustained impact.
Mapping And Manipulating Circuits For Relapse And Abstinence
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$670,005.00
Summary
Alcohol-use disorders and other drug addictions are chronically relapsing conditions. Current treatment approaches have only modest efficacy. Two advances are needed for genuine improvement. The first is parsing the brain mechanisms supporting abstinence and relapse at cellular as well as circuit levels. The second is targeting these circuits therapeutically with the same precision. This project contributes to the first advance and lays a basic science platform for next generation therapeutics.
Unraveling The Neural Circuitry Of Context-induced Relapse To Alcohol Seeking After Punishment-imposed Abstinence
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$528,016.00
Summary
Alcohol use disorder (alcoholism) causes significant social and economic costs to Australian society. Alcoholism is a brain disease, and relapse during abstinence is the main problem in successful treatment. In this project, we use an animal model of relapse to alcohol seeking after abstinence imposed by a negative consequence (punishment). This project will identify brain regions which can be targeted in future clinical studies in human alcoholics.
Drug addiction is a major health and medical problem in Australia. It is a chronically relapsing condition for which there are few effective treatments. This project identifies novel circuits within the brain which are responsible for inhibiting drug taking. It will provide new knowledge on how we may able to prevent relapse to drug taking and so promote and maintain long -term abstinence.
Targeting Drug-Resistance In Paediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$649,048.00
Summary
Leukaemia is the most common type of cancer in children but resistance to therapy continues to be a significant problem. This project will investigate the biology of drug-resistance and relapse using a mouse model that replicates the human disease. We hope to identify novel therapeutic targets that can be used in combination with existing therapies to improve outcomes in this disease, particularly for patients that develop drug-resistance such as those at the time of relapse.
AKR1C3 As A Potential Biomarker For Sensitivity Of T-lineage Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia To The Pre-prodrug PR-104
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$327,797.00
Summary
Multiagent chemotherapy is the most effective modality for the treatment of childhood ALL, the most common paediatric malignancy. Despite dramatic improvements in survival over the past 40 years, relapsed ALL remains one of the most common causes of death from disease in children. Therefore, innovative strategies are needed to benefit those children who respond poorly to established therapy. This application will test a novel therapy for a very aggressive subtype of childhood leukaemia.
The brain plays a major role in the overconsumption of high fat/high sugar foods and this contributes to obesity but it receives little attention when it comes to developing novel treatments. My lab showed that a FDA-approved smoking cessation medication, that is a nicotinic receptor modulator, decreased the overconsumption of sugar. This project aims are to identify which nicotinic receptors and brain circuits are involved in the overconsumption of sucrose to improve treatments for obesity.
Fear Relapse: Neural Substrates Underlying Its Inhibition And Prevention
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$437,476.00
Summary
Exposure-based therapies are effective for anxiety disorders such as post traumatic stress, but two challenges remain: 1) patients that have learned to inhibit their fear are likely to relapse, requiring further therapy; 2) many drop out of therapy since it is aversive and anxiety provoking. We use an animal model to: 1) identify the neural substrates underlying fear inhibition; and 2) determine the conditions that prevent relapse and encourage participation in treatment.
A Memory Retrieval - Extinction Procedure To Prevent Relapse To Drug Seeking
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$387,929.00
Summary
This project shows how relapse to drug seeking can be modulated, and possibly prevented, by novel approaches that manipulate the stability of drug related memories.