Planarians and the pharmacology of addiction: an in vivo model for K-12 education

涡虫和成瘾药理学：K-12 教育的体内模型

• 批准号: 8475248
• 负责人: SCOTT M. RAWLS
• 金额: $ 26.19万
• 依托单位: TEMPLE UNIV OF THE COMMONWEALTH
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-07-15 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8475248
• 关键词: ATOD; Address; Adolescent; Age; Alcohols; Animal Model; Animals; Attitude; Awareness; Basic Science; Behavior; Behavioral; Biological; Biological Neural Networks; Biomedical Research; Brain; Brain Diseases; CD-ROM; Caffeine; Cannabinoids; Caring; Conscious; Dependence; Development; Disease; Dopamine; Drug Addiction; Drug abuse; Drug usage; Drug user; Economics; Educational process of instructing; Educational workshop; Ensure; Ethics; Experimental Designs; Exposure to; Faculty; Glutamates; Goals; Grant; Health; High School Student; Human; Illicit Drugs; Individual; K-12 Education; Knowledge; Laboratories; Language Arts; Lead; Learning; Legal; Life; Link; Mammals; Mathematics; Medical; Mentors; Methodology; Modeling; Mus; Nature; Neurotransmitters; Nicotine; North Carolina; Opioid; Organism; Pennsylvania; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Pharmacology; Physical Dependence; Planarians; Platyhelminths; Population; Process; Program Sustainability; Publications; Rattus; Recording of previous events; Reproducibility; Research; Rewards; Risk; Schools; Science; Scientist; Students; Substance abuse problem; Sucrose; System; United States; United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Universities; Withdrawal; Work; Writing; addiction; base; career; conditioning; design; drinking; drug abuse education; drug of abuse; drug reward; elementary school; hazard; high school; in vivo; in vivo Model; interest; junior high school; laboratory manuals; member; neurochemistry; novel; programs; research study; response; science education; skills training; sugar; teacher; web site

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Approximately 8% of the United States population ages 12 and older are illicit drug users (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2009). Despite the economic, criminal, and medical consequences associated with drug abuse, most people still do not understand that drug addiction is a brain disease. One strategy to better enhance public awareness about addiction is to develop and implement an educational program to teach the science of drug addiction at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Students exposed to such a program could be as knowledgeable about the science and consequences of drug addiction as they are about mathematics, economics, language arts, and history. Current K-12 drug abuse programs are primarily directed toward providing students with information about addiction and abused drugs (ATOD-TV, If You Drink) or dissuading students from using drugs (DARE, Life Skills Training). A long-standing gap in drug abuse education that is not addressed by existing programs is the ability for students to conduct and design experiments in live animals. In vivo effects of addictive substances are typically studied in mammals (humans, mice, rats), but extensive use of mammals in K-12 classrooms is impractical due to economic, practical, legal, and ethical concerns. What is needed to overcome this barrier is a non-mammalian species - one that is scientifically relevant but cheaper and more convenient than mammals. We hypothesize that planarians, an aquatic flatworm, can be used to design a hands-on, inquiry-based educational program for elementary, middle, and high school students. The program will contain lessons linked to National Science Education Standards (NSES) and state standards that will enable students to design and conduct experiments to study the pharmacology of abused drugs (caffeine, nicotine, alcohol) and learn how these pharmacological effects are used to predict and model aspects of human addiction. Planarians are ideal organisms because they have what some consider the earliest 'brain' and possess mammalian-like neurotransmitter systems that are targeted by addictive substances. Dr. Rawls' extensive publication record studying the pharmacological effects of drugs of abuse in planarians indicates that these organisms are ideal for students to study conditions that perpetuate the addictive process, including physical dependence, withdrawal, sensitization, tolerance, and environmental place conditioning. The proposed partnerships between scientists, educators, and students are expected to result in the development, implementation, and dissemination of a reproducible drug abuse program for grade 4-12 students that is sustainable beyond the duration of the initial grant period. We expect this novel program to achieve the multiple goals of increasing student knowledge about the science of drug addiction, increasing student awareness about the care and use of animals in basic science research, shifting student attitudes about drug abuse, and enhancing student interest in pursuing biomedical research careers.

描述（由申请人提供）：美国12岁及以上人口中约有8%是非法药物使用者（药物滥用和精神卫生服务管理局，2009年）。尽管药物滥用带来了经济、犯罪和医疗后果，但大多数人仍然不明白药物成瘾是一种大脑疾病。更好地提高公众对成瘾认识的一个策略是制定和实施一项教育计划，在小学、初中和高中阶段教授药物成瘾科学。接触过这样的项目的学生可能对吸毒成瘾的科学和后果的了解与他们对数学、经济学、语言艺术和历史的了解一样多。目前的K-12药物滥用计划主要是针对向学生提供有关成瘾和滥用药物的信息（ATOD-TV，如果你喝酒）或劝阻学生使用药物（DARE，生活技能培训）。药物滥用教育中的一个长期存在的差距是学生在活体动物中进行和设计实验的能力。成瘾物质的体内效应通常在哺乳动物（人类、小鼠、大鼠）中进行研究，但由于经济、实践、法律的和伦理方面的考虑，在K-12教室中广泛使用哺乳动物是不切实际的。克服这一障碍所需要的是一种非哺乳动物物种--一种与科学相关但比哺乳动物更便宜、更方便的物种。我们假设，涡虫，水生扁形虫，可以用来设计一个动手，探究为基础的教育计划，小学，初中和高中的学生。该计划将包含与国家科学教育标准（NSES）和国家标准相关的课程，使学生能够设计和进行实验，研究滥用药物（咖啡因，尼古丁，酒精）的药理学，并了解这些药理学作用如何用于预测和建模人类成瘾的各个方面。Planarians是理想的生物体，因为他们有一些人认为最早的“大脑”，并拥有成瘾物质的目标神经递质系统。Rawls博士的大量出版记录研究了滥用药物对涡虫的药理作用，表明这些生物体是学生研究成瘾过程持续存在的条件的理想选择，包括身体依赖性，戒断，致敏，耐受性和环境条件。科学家，教育工作者和学生之间拟议的伙伴关系预计将导致开发，实施和传播可重复的药物滥用计划，为4-12年级的学生，可持续超过最初的赠款期。我们希望这个新的计划，以实现多个目标，增加学生对药物成瘾的科学知识，提高学生对基础科学研究中动物的护理和使用的认识，改变学生对药物滥用的态度，并提高学生对追求生物医学研究事业的兴趣。