QBI Seminar: Mechanisms underlying plasticity of potassium channel signaling with psychostimulants

Event Details

Date:

Tuesday, 21 April 2015 - Tuesday, 21 April 2015

Time:

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Room:

QBI Level 7 Auditorium

UQ Location:

Queensland Brain Institute (St Lucia)

URL:

http://www.qbi.uq.edu.au/neuroscience-seminars

Event category(s):

Full Description:: Professor Paul Slesinger
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA
Title: Mechanisms underlying plasticity of potassium channel signaling with psychostimulants
Abstract:
Methamphetamine (METH) is highly addictive and easily accessible drug that is abused by almost one million people. Exposure to addictive drugs produces persistent adaptations in excitatory and inhibitory pathways within the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the mesolimbic dopamine (DA) circuit, suggesting that some addictive behaviors are encoded by changes in the neural circuitry. In the Slesinger laboratory, we focus on the inhibitory signaling pathway produced by G protein-coupled GABAB receptor (GABABR) activation of G protein-gated inwardly rectifying potassium (GIRK) channels. He will present results demonstrating how exposure to psychostimulants induces dramatic plasticity in GABABR-GIRK signaling, involving two distinct cellular mechanisms in VTA DA and GABA neurons. These new results illustrate how the GABABR-GIRK signaling pathway can be targeted for treating addiction.