Understanding The Methamphetamine Epidemic And Its Implications For Service Provision And Harm Reduction: The VicMeth Cohort
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,270,774.00
Summary
The Victorian methamphetamine epidemic has received extensive media coverage highlighting the devastating impact of the drug and resultant public concern. We will follow up a cohort of 800 methamphetamine smokers from metropolitan and regional Victoria bi-annually for a period of 5 years to determine the natural history of methamphetamine use to inform optimal intervention strategies and arrest the increases in harm observed in Victoria recently.
Characterising Neurobiological Abnormalities In Cannabis Use Disorders
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$731,571.00
Summary
Severe Cannabis Use Disorders cause significant harms to quality of life and outcomes including mental health, cognition, motivation and general well being. We will characterise, for the first time, the neuroadaptations associated with cannabis dependence relative to regular use via advanced imaging techniques and examine links between neural alterations and quality of life. This study will help to identify new treatment targets and develop a new neural model of cannabis addiction.
Refining And Testing A Promising New Treatment For Chronic Pain.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$743,947.00
Summary
Chronic pain costs Australia about 35 billion dollars a year. Recent scientific discoveries show that treatment aimed at correcting problems in how the brain processes sensory input can reduce pain and disability. This project will clarify some key aspects of these problems and use that information to make final adjustments to an already very promising treatment. We will then test the treatment in a definitive and comprehensive clinical trial.
Does Obesity Have The Characteristics Of Addiction?
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$430,832.00
Summary
The number of overweight or obese people in Australia has increased dramatically in recent years, increasing disease risk. The brain responds to palatable food in ways similar to the response to drugs of addiction, and this may explain why people find it hard to resist palatable food. Our work will explore whether obesity in rats has the characteristics of addiction by examining bingeing, craving, withdrawal and brain circuits in animals chronically exposed to palatable food.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mephedrone (Meow, 4-Methylmethcathinone): Examining The Effects Of A Novel Party Drug On Brain And Behaviour
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$399,796.00
Summary
Mephedrone ("Meow") is a novel recreational drug that has rapidly increased in popularity in recent years. Users report that mephedrone has the stimulant-like qualities of cocaine, combined with the prosocial effects of MDMA. Anecdotal and case study reports indicate that mephedrone may have the potential to engender compulsive patterns of use as well as toxicity in overdose. The current project will use animal models to assess how mephedrone affects the brain and behaviour and to assess its add ....Mephedrone ("Meow") is a novel recreational drug that has rapidly increased in popularity in recent years. Users report that mephedrone has the stimulant-like qualities of cocaine, combined with the prosocial effects of MDMA. Anecdotal and case study reports indicate that mephedrone may have the potential to engender compulsive patterns of use as well as toxicity in overdose. The current project will use animal models to assess how mephedrone affects the brain and behaviour and to assess its addictive potential.Read moreRead less
Motivational drive and reward are survival processes that underpin the maintenance of homeostasis. In humans, dysregulation of these brain circuits manifests in disorders such as depression and addictions. Our projects is focused on a key subgroup of neurons in the hypothalamus that modulates reward and motivation. We aim to understand how potent reward experience (e.g. drugs) or stress modifies these circuits and to identify potential entry points for therapeutic interventions.