Read our new preprint lead by graduate students Erica Ramirez and Maricela Martinez, who found that silencing GABA neurons in the ventral pallidum exaggerates defensive responses to threat cues and activates the lateral habenula, indicating a novel role beyond their known function in reward processing. Ramirez EM, Martinez MX, Rokerya RK, Vera VA, Ruiz CM, Read More…

Read our newest paper in Psychopharm, lead by graduate student Maricela Martinez! We found sex-dependent changes, and lack thereof, in cognition and dopamine systems after adolescent THC in rats. Martinez, M.X., Alizo Vera, V., Ruiz, C.M., Floresco, S.B., and Mahler, S.V. Adolescent THC impacts on mPFC dopamine-mediated cognitive processes in male and female rats. Psychopharmacology. Read More…

Check out our newest paper lead by recent Mahler/Baram Ph.D. alumna Sophia Levis, focused on altered reward and stress circuitry in male rats after early life adversity. We find opposite effects from our previous studies in female rats, read this other half of the story in Translational Psychiatry! Levis, S.C., Birnie, M.T., Bolton, J.L. et al. Enduring Read More…

Our latest paper in Addiction Neuroscience lead by Mitch Farrell highlights the bidirectional control of VP GABA neurons in opioid relapse following voluntary abstinence or extinction. Mitchell R. Farrell, Qiying Ye, Yiyan Xie, Jeanine Sandra D. Esteban, Stephen V. Mahler,Ventral pallidum GABA neurons bidirectionally control opioid relapse across rat behavioral models,Addiction Neuroscience,Volume 3, 2022, 100026, Read More…

Check out our new paper in Brain Sciences from Kate Lawson, and rotating UCI PhD students Aby Flores and Rachael Hokenson! We show that inhibiting nucleus accumbens neurons with DREADDs suppresses the number, but not the quality of amphetamine-induced ultrasonic vocalizations.

Christina Ruiz, Alexa Torrens, and Valeria Lallai lead our new paper characterizing THC aerosol (vapor) dosing in male and female adolescent rats. Check it out!

Here is our new paper in Journal of Neuroscience, showing that GABA neurons in the VP are essential for highly motivated behavior, and decisions about whether to take a risk to get a reward. Mitch is a DSPAN F99/K00 Awardee, and is currently looking for a postdoctoral position in the US!

Check out these new papers from our collaboration with Dr. Tallie Z Baram, led by MD/PhD student Sophia Levis! Levis et al EJN 2021 Levis et al Frontiers 2021

We have new paper in Neuropsychopharmacology, led by Christina Ruiz and Alexa Torrens (of the Piomelli Lab here at UCI), describes major sex differences in THC metabolism, behavioral effects, and effects on brain neural network activity (in collaboration with Vivek Swarup, also of UCI). Check it out!

Morgan James (Rutgers University) and I wrote a summary of an exciting new paper in Neuropsychopharmacology from the lab of Susan Ferguson (U Washington). Check it out!