There is an overdose epidemic associated with the use of illicitly manufactured as well as prescription mu-opioid agonists. Sigma1 receptor (σ1R) antagonists in combination with other drugs may provide a viable, safe pharmacological option for treating ...

Marijuana is one of the most commonly used illicit recreational drugs. It is reported that up to 14% of pregnant females aged between 12-44 have used cannabis during their first trimester. In this study we wanted to determine the effect of brief exposur...

Contradictory evidence regarding which brain areas may be compromised with high levels of marijuana consumption has been reported in previous studies. We have explored tissue integrity of the main white matter (WM) tracts using the MRI Diffusion Tensor ...

Cannabinoids have beneficial effects in multiple animal models of seizure. Exposure to soman (GD), a chemical warfare nerve agent, induces status epilepticus (SE) which becomes refractory to benzodiazepines if the anticonvulsant treatment is delayed. Th...

Initiation of drug use during adolescence is a strong predictor of both the incidence and severity of addiction throughout the lifespan. Among adolescents, marijuana is the most commonly abused illicit drug, and excessive use of cannabinoids in this pop...

Genetic predisposition may be required for adolescent cannabis exposure to produce long-term cognitive abnormalities. Yet, the mechanisms whereby genetic liability interacts with cannabis exposure remain unknown. A major psychoactive ingredient of canna...

Negative transcriptional feedback loops are a core feature of eukaryotic circadian clocks and are based on rhythmic interactions between clock-specific repressors and transcription factors. In Drosophila , the repression of dCLOCK (dCLK)-CYCLE (CYC) transcriptional activity by dPERIOD (dPER) is critical for driving circadian gene expression. Although growing lines of evidence indicate that circadian repressors such as dPER function, at least partly, as molecular bridges that facilitate timely interactions between other regulatory factors and core clock transcription factors, how dPER interacts with dCLK-CYC to promote repression is not known. Here, we identified a small conserved region on dPER required for binding to dCLK, termed CBD (for dCLK binding domain). In the absence of the CBD, dPER is unable to stably associate with dCLK and inhibit the transcriptional activity of dCLK-CYC in a simplified cell culture system. CBD is situated in close proximity to a region that interacts with other regulatory fac...

Since 2004, herbal mixtures broadly known as Spice/K2, containing synthetic cannabinoids (SC) such as JWH-018, have been marketed as a legal marijuana surrogate. Previous studies of our group showed that JWH-018 has CB1-receptor dependent reinforcing pr...

The attentional system (AttS) is important for the survival and behavioral performance of the species. Cannabinoids have become a research interest in light of possible adverse effects that the use of marijuana can have. These substances bind to CB1 and...

A preponderance of evidence indicates that addiction to drugs of abuse produces enduring changes in brain synaptic physiology that contribute to the vulnerability to relapse. Chief among these, it has been shown that chronic cocaine, nicotine, heroin, a...