Identification of Novel Circuits & Molecules Underlying Cue-Induced Reinstatement of Oxycodone Seeking

Alex is currently funded by an R00 from NIDA, having completed the K99 phase of the award at Mount Sinai. You can see the abstract of this grant on NIH Reporter here. During the K99 phase of this project, Alex trained mice to self-administer sucrose, oxycodone, or saline, and used whole-brain c-Fos mapping to identify novel regions that are activated by cue-induced reinstatement of oxycodone, but not sucrose seeking. This revealed several highly novel regions that show c-Fos expression that is tightly correlated with reinstatement behavior. In the R00 phase of this award, Alex’s lab will use single-nuclei sequencing of these regions to identify individual transcripts that are regulated by opioid-conditioned cues, and then will test the efficacy of pharmacologically manipulating target genes in reducing reinstatement behavior.