Marcus Weera
Tufts University, MA·Neuroscience·Early-career
Alcohol normally has unpleasant effects that discourage people from drinking too much. In some individuals that brake is weak, and heavy drinking follows.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Psychology
- Topics
alcohol use disorder
alcohol self-administration
alcohol aversion
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Mar 2031
What they work on
- Test whether Avoider rats, which persistently avoid a predator odor-paired context, show blunted activation of lateral habenula-projecting lateral hypothalamus neurons after an aversive dose of alcohol, measured by Fos immunohistochemistry and in vivo fiber photometry.
- Determine whether chemogenetic stimulation of lateral hypothalamus-to-lateral habenula neurons restores lateral habenula activity and rescues stress-induced tolerance to alcohol aversion, assessed by fiber photometry and alcohol conditioned place aversion.
- Test whether chemogenetically activating the same circuit reverses stress-induced escalation of operant alcohol self-administration in Avoider rats.
- Establish the role of the glutamatergic lateral hypothalamus-to-lateral habenula circuit in alcohol aversion using classical and operant conditioning combined with chemogenetics and fiber photometry.
- Map stress-related changes in behavioral and neural responsivity to alcohol across multiple domains in male and female Avoider, Non-Avoider and unstressed Control rats, to explain individual differences in alcohol sensitivity.
More about the research
Stress is another major driver of alcohol use disorder, especially in people who cope by avoiding anything that reminds them of the stressful event. How stress weakens the brain's response to alcohol's unpleasant effects, and which circuits are responsible, is largely unknown. Both grants pursue this question in rats, using a stress model in which some animals develop persistent avoidance and others do not, and focus on a connection between two brain regions: the lateral hypothalamus, involved in motivation and feeding, and the lateral habenula, a hub that signals disappointment and aversion.
Why it matters
Alcohol use disorder carries an estimated $249 billion annual economic burden in the US and contributes to more than 178,000 deaths a year, and it often begins or worsens after trauma. By identifying a specific brain circuit through which stress blunts alcohol's aversive effects and promotes heavy drinking, this work could point to new treatment or prevention targets for people at elevated risk after stress, and helps explain why some individuals are far more vulnerable than others.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Hyung Nam
Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-Shreveport, LA·Neuroscience
Determine how chronic alcohol lowers neurogranin, a synaptic protein that tunes glutamate signaling, in the mouse medial prefrontal cortex, and test tolerance in mice with mPFC-specific Ng knockout or overexpression.
Claes Wahlestedt
University of Miami, FL·Neuroscience
Profile the silencing histone mark H3K27me3 in amygdala neurons and non-neuronal cells of rats that drink alcohol compulsively despite foot-shock, using CUT&RUN mapping, and link differences to gene expression with RNA sequencing.
Jun Wang
Texas A&M University-College Station, TX·Neuroscience
Define how cocaine-strengthened inhibition from dMSNs onto cholinergic interneurons reduces thalamic excitation of these interneurons and acetylcholine release, using dual-channel optogenetics, electrophysiology and genetically encoded ACh sensors.
The school
Tufts University: 19 labs on PI Pages, $278M a year on research, 144 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.