National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

Our senses are essential for us to interact with the world. Our five senses–sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell work closely to enable the mind to understand its surroundings better. In humans, chemical senses mediate safety, nutrition, the sensation of pleasure, and general well-being. Taste, olfaction, and chemesthesis (refers to chemical irritation from the burning of chili peppers, the cooling...

Research in the Laboratory for Integrative Neuroscience (LIN) examines the role of particular molecules in control of actions, acute alcohol intoxication, alcohol seeking behavior, alcohol use disorder and habitual behavior. Another aim of research in LIN is to examine the molecular mechanisms of synaptic modulation and plasticity related to action and habit learning. An important unifying theme of research within...

The principal mission of the lab is to develop selective probes and drug-like molecules to enable the study of molecular mechanisms in alcohol associated diseases. The lab aims to use medicinal chemistry and chemical biology approaches to design, synthesize and biologically characterize novel druggable tools for select GPCRs and enzymatic drug targets implicated in pain, inflammatory and fibrotic disorders. Our...

Human Neurogenetics identifies functional loci that modulate pathways to vulnerability to alcoholism, other addictions, and related psychiatric disorders. To accomplish this it generates clinical datasets and collaborates with multiple laboratories. Its activities encompass human research protocols, large scale SNP detection using massively parallel sequencing, array and capillary electrophoresis based genotyping, in vitro and in vivo functional analyses of receptor variants...

The Laboratory of Cardiovascular Physiology and Tissue Injury (LCPTI) seeks to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the complex interplay of oxidative/nitrative stress, inflammation, lipid signaling (for example endocannabinoid signaling) and cell death pathways (e.g. poly(ADP)-ribose polymerase) in tissue injury, and to identify new therapeutic targets using clinically relevant animal models of disease (e.g., ischemia reperfusion injury, cardiomyopathies/heart failure...

LNI uses brain imaging (PET, MRI and simultaneous PET/MRI) to study the neurocircuitry that underlies the rewarding effects of drugs of abuse and of natural reinforcers and their disruption in diseases of addiction and obesity. For this purpose we study how reward circuits modulate executive function (self-control), interoception, and motivation in the normal human brain including an understanding of the...

The research focus of the Laboratory of Molecular Signaling (LMS) is to elucidate mechanisms of omega-3 fatty acids, especially docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3) in neuronal development and function with particular reference to the modulation by ethanol. We investigate biochemical mechanisms by which omega-3 fatty acids and ethanol modify neuronal cell membrane structure, and characterize consequential molecular and cellular signaling involved...

The Section on Neuroendocrinology focuses on the endocannabinoid system, which is involved in the regulation of appetite and the metabolism of lipids, and is therefore implicated in obesity, alcoholism and cardiovascular disease. The Section previously provided the first evidence that mice deficient in the cannabinoid receptor CB1 showed reduced food intake following temporary food deprivation. However, the use of rimonabant...

"The wrong road early," an interview with Dr. Ralph Hingson and HHS HealthBeat. - Listen to the interview with Dr. Ralph Hingson (September 6, 2006) - Read the transcript