Faculty Receive $3.3 Million NIH Grant
OT faculty will receive a five-year, $3.3 million from the National Institutes of Health to support a research project, "Fetal Alcohol in Monkeys: Dopamine and Behavior," led by Prof. Mary Schneider.
“Our objective is to determine the extent to which rhesus macaque monkeys exposed to prenatal perturbations (prenatal stress, alcohol exposure), that we have found to alter dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5-HT) function as well as sensory processing behavior, will show different neuroadaptational changes in the brain, compared with controls, after chronic alcohol self-administration in adulthood. PET neuroimaging measures of D1, D2 and 5-HT1A receptor and DAT availability will be compared across treatments groups in brain regions associated with alcohol use disorders and sensory processing disorder before and after chronic EtOH self-administration. We will determine the extent to which altered DA and 5-HT receptor and DAT availability is a predisposition or a consequence of excessive alcohol consumption. We use innovative life-span assessments that allow us to translate our findings back to humans. The proposed research is significant because it is expected to lead to discovery of novel pathways underlying comorbid PN-Alc, PNS, alcohol use disorders, and sensory processing disorders, providing new targets for the development of therapeutic and pharmacological interventions to reduce the burdens on society.”