Paul Vezina, PhD

Lab Website: http://vezinalab.bsd.uchicago.edu/index.html

Education & Training

• Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, PhD, 1988
• Postdoctoral Research, Neuropharmacologie, Collège de France, Paris, France, 1988-1990

Research Interests

• Basal ganglia and the generation of appetitive behaviors
• Signaling pathways underlying drug-induced neuronal plasticity
• Neurobiology and neuropharmacology

Teaching

• Director, NIDA Training Program (T32 DA007255, NIDA)
• Neuropsychopharmacology, NURB 32800, Winter Quarter
• Neurobiology of Disease, NURB 34600, Winter Quarter, Course Director: Dr. C. Gomez
• Perspectives in Drug Abuse, PHARM 32900, Spring Quarter, Course Director: Dr. H. de Wit

Society Memberships

• American College of Neuropsychopharmacology
• College on Problems of Drug Dependence
• European Behavioural Pharmacology Society
• Society for Neuroscience

Representative Publications (from last year)

• Loweth JA, Svoboda R, Austin JD, Guillory AM, Vezina P. The PKC inhibitor Ro31-8220 blocks acute amphetamine-induced dopamine overflow in the nucleus accumbens. Neuroscience Letters 2009; 455: 88-92.
• Singer BF, Tanabe LM, Gorny G, Jake-Matthews C, Li Y, Kolb B, Vezina P. Amphetamine-induced changes in dendritic morphology in rat forebrain correspond to associative drug conditioning rather than nonassociative drug sensitization. Biological Psychiatry 2009, in press.
• Bryant CD, Graham ME, Distler MG, Munoz MB, Li D, Vezina P, Sokoloff G, Palmer AA. A role for casein kinase 1 epsilon in the locomotor stimulant response to methamphetamine. Psychopharmacology 2009; 203: 703-711.
• Vezina P, Leyton M. Conditioned cues and the expression of sensitization in animals and humans. Neuropharmacology 2009; 56: 160-168.
• Loweth JA, Baker LK, Guptaa T, Guillory AM, Vezina P. Inhibition of CaMKII in the nucleus accumbens shell decreases enhanced amphetamine intake in sensitized rats. Neuroscience Letters 2008; 444: 157-160.
• Kim WY, Vezina P, Kim J-H. Blockade of group II, but not group I, mGluRs in the rat nucleus accumbens inhibits the expression of conditioned hyperactivity in an amphetamine-associated environment. Behavioural Brain Research 2008; 191: 62-66.
• Vezina P. Hot Topics: Evidence that dopamine response to amphetamine sensitizes in humans. Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews 2008; 33: 206-207.

Current Editorial Boards

• Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
• Neuroscience and Neuroeconomics
• Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry

Other Activities

• Research Section Chief and Mission Director, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, The University of Chicago
• Director, NIDA Drug Abuse Research Program