New Horizons in Adult Neurogenesis

描述（由申请人提供）：这是NIDA独立科学家奖（K 02）的续期申请。这位候选人是阿米莉亚·J·普莱希博士，是德州大学西南医学中心精神病学系的终身副教授。Dr. Edich是理解某些形式的海马可塑性（如成人海马神经发生和成瘾相关行为）之间相互关系的先驱。这个K 02的第一个奖项期间提供了博士的受保护的时间，她需要完成她过去的目标，其中包括更新她的NIDA R 01阿片类药物和神经发生的赠款，获得额外的联邦资金，推进她的工作从相关到更多的机制和“因果关系”的研究，并被提升为副教授，并获得终身教职。要求K 02更新是为了继续这种受保护的时间，并允许Dr. Dauch利用她在理解成人大脑中新神经元和成瘾之间的相互作用方面所建立的动力。获得K 02的续约奖励将使她继续免受行政负担的保护，从而使Dr. Dr. Edich能够推进：（1）成人产生的神经元与成瘾相关行为之间关系的研究;（2）成人产生的海马神经元的细胞，分子和遗传控制的解剖;（3）成人产生的海马神经元的细胞，分子和遗传控制的解剖。（3）在新神经元的翻译谱、超微结构分析和电路水平影响方面的新合作;（4）在这些合作中应用新技术（BAC-TRAP、光遗传学、EM、电生理学）;（5）用于资助申请的数据收集：她现有的阿片类药物和神经发生的R 01的10年更新，一个新的NIDA R 01与海马神经发生的分子控制有关，和一个新的NIDA R 01相关的行为和电路水平的影响成人产生的神经元。通过提供这种保护的时间，Dr. Edich可以与她的合作者密切合作，并迅速推进她的新想法，从而使成瘾研究和干细胞生物学以及整个神经科学领域受益。这个K 02奖项提供的稳定性和保护时间最终将支持至少两个新项目，探索成人产生的海马神经元和成瘾相关行为之间的有趣关系。由于这些研究具有很大的潜力，可以提高我们对滥用药物影响大脑功能的复杂机制的理解，因此它们可能为治疗成瘾和复吸开辟新的途径。由于这些研究还将揭示成人产生的神经元如何影响复杂行为-例如药物/背景关联，药物寻求的灭绝以及对压力的行为反应-它们对于未来利用神经干细胞修复受伤甚至成瘾的大脑以及我们理解新神经元在成人大脑中可以/将要做什么都很重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a renewal application for a NIDA Independent Scientist Award (K02). The candidate, Amelia J. Eisch, Ph.D., is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Eisch is a pioneer in understanding the reciprocal relationship between certain forms of hippocampal plasticity such as adult hippocampal neurogenesis and behaviors relevant to addiction. The first award period of this K02 provided Dr. Eisch with the protected time she needed to accomplish her past goals, which included renewing her NIDA R01 grant on opiates and neurogenesis, securing additional federal funding, advancing her work from correlative to more mechanistic and "causative" studies, and being promoted to Associate Professor and receiving tenure. This K02 renewal is requested in order to continue this protected time and to allow Dr. Eisch to utilize the momentum she has established in understanding the proposed reciprocal role between new neurons in the adult brain and addiction. The receipt of a K02 renewal award would allow her continued protection from administrative burdens, and thus allow Dr. Eisch to advance: (1) research on the relationship between adult-generated neurons and behaviors relevant to addiction; (2) dissection of the cellular, molecular, and genetic control of adult-generated hippocampal neurons; (3) newly developed collaborations on translational profiling, ultrastructural analysis, and circuit-level impact of new neurons; (4) application of new techniques for these collaborations (BAC-TRAP, optogenetics, EM, electrophysiology); (5) data collection for grant applications: the 10-year renewal of her existing R01 on opiates and neurogenesis, a new NIDA R01 relevant to the molecular control of hippocampal neurogenesis, and a new NIDA R01 relevant to behavioral and circuit-level impact of adult-generated neurons. By providing this protected time, Dr. Eisch can work closely with her collaborators and rapidly advance her new ideas, thus benefitting the fields of addiction research and stem cell biology and neuroscience as a whole. The stability and protected time offered by this K02 award would ultimately support at least two new projects exploring the intriguing relationship between adult-generated hippocampal neurons and behaviors relevant to addiction. As these studies hold great potential to improve our understanding of the complex mechanisms by which drugs of abuse affect brain function, they therefore may open new avenues for treatment of addiction and relapse to drug seeking. As these studies also will also shed much-needed light on how adult-generated neurons influence complex behavior - such as drug/context association, extinction from drug-seeking, and behavioral response to stress - they will be important to future efforts to harness neural stem cells for repair of the injured, even addicted, brain and to our understanding of what new neurons can/will do in the adult brain.