Training Goals

The Department of Behavioral Neuroscience is the recipient of pre- and post-doctoral institutional research training grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Our focus is on the basic biological processes involved in the etiology of alcoholism and drug addiction. Our general approach is interdisciplinary. The program's goal is to produce specialists in the biological basis of alcoholism and drug-seeking behavior who will be thoroughly competent to teach and conduct research on the problems of substance abuse and addiction at both molar and molecular levels. The program is designed to take full advantage of the unique educational opportunities available in a medical school to train biologically-oriented scientists in a variety of disciplines relevant to neuroscience, including cell and molecular biology, neuroanatomy, neuropharmacology, neurophysiology, genetics, and behavioral neuroscience.

Training Site

The training program includes investigators with faculty appointments at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), with laboratories there, at the affiliated and physically incorporated Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), the nearby Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC), and Portland State University (PSU). Several investigators are affiliated with the Vollum Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research (VIABR), a facility established on the OHSU campus in 1987 which concentrates on studies of molecular neuroscience. OHSU has been preparing pre- and postdoctoral students for teaching and research careers in the biological cases of drug-seeking behavior for more than two decades. Scientists based at the VAMC, VIABR, and the ONPRC train students through their affiliations with a basic science department of OHSU, or the Vollum Institute. Participating faculty are in the Departments of Behavioral Neuroscience; Cell, Developmental, and Cancer Biology; Physiology & Pharmacology; Neurology; and the Vollum Institute.

Common Research Themes

The studies ongoing in the laboratories of the Training Faculty have several commonalties, reflecting a high degree of collaboration among laboratories. Four areas of commonality are selected from the many currently in place to illustrate the collaborations in Portland. Twelve investigators are actively studying dopaminergic systems, which are considered central to most current theories of the neurobiology of drug abuse. These ongoing studies span the range from molecular biology to behavioral pharmacology and genetic mapping. Furthermore, the specific collaborations in place combine different levels of approach, taking advantage of the range of faculty expertise. A second strong theme common to the training faculty is the use of genetic tools to study the problems of drug abuse. Fourteen of the faculty are actively employing genetic strategies, with a strong focus on studies whose goals is to map drug-sensitivity genes to particular chromosomal locations using Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) methods. The homology between human and mouse chromosome maps will allow the eventual mapping of these genes to the human chromosome through syntenic mapping. Several candidate QTLs have been identified with a high degree of statistical certainty, and faculty and trainees are now pursuing the identity of the mapped genes. Thus, activity in the genetics group is beginning to integrate the studies of single genes from the behavioral pharmacogenetic level of mapping to the molecular biological study of gene function. A third theme common to ongoing research in the laboratories of several members of the training faculty is the study of learned and unlearned determinants of responses to drugs, particularly their rewarding effects and drug self-administration. A number of animal models differing genetically are used in these studies. Finally, a fourth example of commonality is in the area of opioid systems, where seven members of the training faculty have studies underway at all levels of analysis. These examples are illustrative of the large number of collaborative interactions among training faculty that have already involved our pre- and postdoctoral trainees. In fact, the implementation of this training program has fostered the development of many new collaborations, especially between faculty working at different levels of analysis. The collaborative interactions involving NIDA trainees are clearly reflected in the list of Trainee Publications.

Other Trainee Activities

Trainees have access to and participate in a variety of other scientific and academic activities on the OHSU campus. Activities of our research training program overlap and are coordinated with those of the Portland Alcohol Research Center (PARC), and the Methamphetamine Abuse Research Center (MARC). Postdoctoral trainees organize and run a monthly journal club attended by trainees and faculty, where current papers are discussed. At a biweekly neuroscience seminar, faculty and postdocs present their ongoing research in a very informal setting. The basic science departments and the Vollum Institute have frequent seminars by outside speakers in a range of neuroscience disciplines, and the training grants and PARC sponsor many visiting speakers each year. Finally, there is an annual 1-day retreat where trainees and faculty present data and discuss programmatic issues.