Undergraduate Training in Alcohol Research

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall goal of this proposal is to increase the opportunities for undergraduate students to engage in high-level, faculty-mentored research into the effects of alcohol on brain and behavior. Four to eight undergraduate students will be provided support for research training in biobehavioral approaches to the study of alcohol abuse and alcoholism, concentrating on factors influencing either the developmental consequences of alcohol exposure or alcohol drinking in adults. The proposed Undergraduate Alcohol Research Training Program (UARTP) will allow expanded involvement for qualified students, who otherwise might not have the time or resources to participate. Support for undergraduate research, as part of the educational training mission at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), is limited for undergraduates, even though research training is the most successful and preferred mechanism of learning for our students who are interested in pursuing careers in behavioral neuroscience. We are proposing three novel research projects to provide the students with opportunities to participate in integrative research. The projects, making up the specific aims of this proposal, are to 1) test the hypothesis that the consequences of combined exposure to alcohol and neonatal isolation stress during the early postnatal period will produce more severe developmental alterations in brain structure, neurochemistry, and behavioral function than exposure to either treatment alone; 2) test the hypothesis that the modulatory effects of amphetamine on brain stimulation reward (BSR) will differ between preferring and non-preferring lines of rats genetically selected for differences in voluntary alcohol drinking; and 3) test the hypothesis that repeated exposure to amphetamine will result in neuroadaptive changes that will affect the ability of amphetamine to reduce voluntary alcohol drinking. These projects should provide the PI new opportunities to use her expertise to develop productive lines of animal model research on the developmental and psychopharmacological effects of alcohol.