Patricia Y. Gurin Collegiate Professor of Psychology
About
I have been studying sex differences in and sexual differentiation of the neural systems mediating drug abuse and motivation for over thirty years. My early research laid the groundwork for these studies by demonstrating that there is a sex difference in dopamine release from the striatum, this sex difference is affected by neonatal and adolescent hormone manipulations and that estradiol modulates the release of dopamine in the striatum of female rats. My research has gone on to elucidate the mechanisms mediating the rapid and direct effect of estradiol on the striatum of females. Experiments in the laboratory investigate the effects of psychomotor stimulants on behavior in rat and how ovarian hormones act in the brain to influence drug taking behaviors. More recently I have been studying the neural mechanisms mediating sex differences in preference for cocaine and cocaine-taking behavior in the laboratory rat. We are also investigating the mechanisms mediating the effect of estradiol to change a female rat’s motivation for food to motivation for a mate. Methods employed include in vivo microdialysis and fast scan cyclic voltammetry as well as drug self-administration and operant conditioning paradigms. In all experimental programs we seek to tie the behavioral measures to underlying neurobiological mechanisms. The findings from my basic research parallel well what is reported in the clinical literature, for example, women accelerate drug taking more rapidly than do men. My laboratory is currently funded by grants from the NIH and NSF.
Recent Representative Publications
Westenbroek C, Perry AN, Jagannathan L, Becker JB.
Effect of Social Housing and Oxytocin on the Motivation to Self-Administer Methamphetamine in Female Rats.
Physiology Behavior. 2019; 203:10-17. Epub 2017 Oct 18.
doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2017.10.020. PMID: 29055749.
Thomas MB, Becker JB.
Sex differences in prenatal stress effects on cocaine pursuit in rats.
Physiology & Behavior. 2019; 203: 3-9. Epub 2017 Oct 18.
PMID: 29055747.
Song Z, Kalyani M, Becker JB.
Sex differences in motivated behaviors in animal models.
Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 2018; 23:98-102.
Yoest KE, Quigley JA, Becker JB.
Rapid Effects of Ovarian Hormones in Dorsal Striatum and Nucleus Accumbens.
Hormones and Behavior. 2018; 104:119-129.
PMID: 29626485.
Becker JB, Chartoff E.
Sex Differences in Neural Mechanisms Mediating Reward and Addiction.
Neuropsychopharmacology. 2019 Jan; 44(1):166-183. Epub 2018 Jun 19.
doi: 10.1038/s41386-018-0125-6. PMID: 29946108.
Yoest KE, Cummings JA, Becker JB.
Estradiol influences on dopamine release from the nucleus accumbens shell: Sex differences and the role of selective estradiol receptor subtypes.
British Journal of Pharmacology. 2018. Epub ahead of print.
PMID: 30381823.
Song Z, Yang H, Peckham EM, Becker JB.
Estradiol-induced potentiation of dopamine release in dorsal striatum following amphetamine administration requires estradiol receptors and mGlu5.
eNeuro. 29 January 2019.
doi: 10.1523/eneuro.0446-18.2019.
Beltz, AM*, Beery AK*, Becker JB.
Analysis of sex difference in pre-clinical and clinical data sets.
Neuropsychopharmacology. 2019; invited commentary under re-review.
*Co-first authors.
A full listing of my research publications can be found at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Becker%20JB
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