Clinical Research Pilot Projects Program, 2025–2027, “Addressing Sex Disparities in Alcohol Research: Cholinergic Disruption in the Nucleus Tractus Sollitarius Following Adolescent Binge Drinking”

Research Areas

  • Alcohol and substance abuse among adolescents and young adults
  • Neurodevelopmental and behavioral neuroscience
  • Quantitative analysis and data science

Scientific Achievements

  • Revealed unexpected effects of diazepam on dopamine signaling, showing that addictive properties can occur even when dopamine activity is reduced, challenging traditional views of addiction mechanisms.
  • Demonstrated long-lasting effects of adolescent alcohol exposure, including persistent changes in behavior and in how brain circuits and cells function later in life.
  • Advanced research on synthetic neurosteroids, showing their ability to reduce dopamine release in brain reward regions and providing new insight into drug effects related to anxiety and substance use.
  • Established an independent research program at NCCU to study how adolescent alcohol exposure alters internal body awareness and decision-making, with implications for addiction risk and recovery.

Funding

RCMI Funding

  • U54MD012392, NIH/NIMHD: Pilot Project “Addressing Sex Disparities in Alcohol Research: Cholinergic Disruption in the Nucleus Tractus Sollitarius Following Adolescent Binge Drinking”

Scientific Advance

J. A. Pochapski*, A. Gómez-A* et al. (2024). Adolescent alcohol exposure persistently alters orbitofrontal cortical encoding of Pavlovian conditional stimulus components in female rats. Scientific Reports.

A. Gómez-A et al. (2021). Altered cortico-subcortical network after adolescent alcohol exposure mediates behavioral deficits in flexible decision-making. Frontiers in Pharmacology.

C. A. Dannenhoffer*, A. Gómez-A* et al. (2022). Impact of adolescent intermittent ethanol exposure on interneurons and their surrounding perineuronal nets in adulthood. Alcohol Clin Exp Res.

A. Gómez-A et al. (2020). Stimulus predicting high-calorie reward increases dopamine release and drives food consumption in absence of homeostatic need. Nutritional Neuroscience.

Across these four studies, I demonstrated that adolescent alcohol exposure permanently disrupts adult executive functioning. It alters orbitofrontal cortical encoding of reward cues, decreases cortico-subcortical network connectivity to impair decision-making, and stiffens prefrontal inhibitory circuitry by increasing perineuronal nets. Additionally, the research highlights how reward-predictive stimuli trigger dopamine surges that drive overeating regardless of hunger.

2022 Travel Award, Triangle Society for Neuroscience: Postdoctoral Best Poster Award Winner

2020 NIH Travel Awards to Alcoholism and Stress: A Framework for Future Treatment Strategies, Volterra, Italy, May 2023.

Govt. of Brazil, Scholarship: CAPES (Coordination of Improvement of Higher-Level Personnel) 2012

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