NIDA grant R01 AA013951.   This grant supports research focused on understanding the actions of abused inhalants such as toluene on the addiction neurocircuitry of the brain. Inhalants are an under-studied drug of abuse and have a relatively high incidence of use among children and adolescents. This works uses in vitro and in vivo techniques to determine how toluene and other inhalants affect cortical and sub-cortical areas involved in cognition and reward. 

 

Summary of effects of acute toluene on the function of recombinant ion channels

Summary of the acute effects of toluene on principal neurons within an addiction neurocircuitry containing prefrontal cortex, ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens

A brief exposure to toluene vapor in vivo induces long lasting changes in the AMPA/NMDA ratio of dopamine neurons that project to the nucleus accumbens core and shell

Table showing different classes of inhalants and representative examples of chemical in each class 

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