Alcoholism is characterized by craving, uncontrolled drinking, tolerance and physical dependence.
My goal is to understand the cellular and molecular basis of these behaviors. This is the best way to develop urgently needed drugs to prevent and manage alcohol addiction. Using neural cell culture systems, we already have identified changes in cell signaling pathways that we earlier had found in cells from alcoholics. We have discovered a role for important signaling pathways in brain cells that probably play a role in the development of alcoholism and addictive behaviors. Our goal is to use this information to develop new pharmaceutical therapies for these disorders.