The Sleep and Performance Research Center welcome Dr. Andrew Kesner, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Indiana University Indianapolis to WSU Spokane on Thursday, Nov. 6. He will be providing his seminar at 12:10 p.m., “Preclinical Modeling of Spontaneous THC Withdrawal Symptoms in Mice: Sleep, Dopamine, and Behavioral Maladaptations,” in SAC 347 and via Zoom.
Dr. Kesner’s overarching scientific interest is in the neural mechanism of motivated behavior and how these mechanisms go awry in psychiatric disorders like addiction. He has used optogenetics and in-vivo electrophysiology in awake, behaving mice to elucidate the roles of a novel brain reward system. He has focused research on modeling cannabis withdrawal symptoms in mice, where he found that, like humans, mice experience profound sleep disturbance during withdrawal from d9-tetrahydocanabinol (THC). These findings open the door for preclinical research towards understanding the neural mechanisms of sleep disruption during withdrawal from misused substances, which turns out to be a major driver of relapse. The mission of his lab is to use systems neuroscience approaches to understand how brain systems controlling motivated behaviors and sleep/arousal processes interact to drive maladaptive behaviors.
We look forward to you joining us in SAC 347 or thru Zoom!
Questions/Zoom link? Contact Michelle Sanchez at michelle.r.sanchez@wsu.edu.
