Our research is focused on the systems biology of psychiatric disorders, more specifically, alterations in brain mRNA and protein expression with drug abuse, alcoholism, and schizophrenia. This research requires combining behavioral models with functional genomic and proteomic technologies. Using these approaches we have discovered a number of novel changes with stimulant self-administration. Recently we were able to provide the first instance of behavioral characterization by proteomic profiling of a brain region.

The ultimate goal of this work is to better understand the neurobiological changes with psychiatric disease and to provide novel targets for therapies.

Examples of hippocampal proteins with significant differences in expression specific to abstinence. Representative 3-dimensional plots of specific spots along with the standardized (to the Cy2 normalization channel) values are given. Locations in the preparative gel are shown below.