Research Overview
BarryKosofsky, MD, PhD, Director of the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Laboratory of Molecular and Developmental Neuroscience,
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
- Structural MR Analyses of Drug Exposed Brains Use of automated segmentation tools and and validation of the application of such tools to the analysis of a set of structural MR scans obtained from 8-12 year old children exposed to cocaine in utero as compared with controls. We will test the hypothesis that alcohol and cocaine induced alterations in fetal brain development produced lasting and specific alterations in the size and shape of particular subcortical structures, and in the volume and folding pattern of particular cortical areas.
- Addiction Following Prenatal Cocaine ExposureStudy of the anatomic consequences and mechanisms underlying transplacental cocaine exposure to the developing brain, with a particular emphasis on the subsequent liability for addiction in exposed offspring.
- Cocaine-Induced Disturbances of Mouse Brain DevelopmentUse of an animal model, in mice, of prenatal cocaine exposure to define mechanisms whereby transplacental cocaine exposure impairs fetal brain and body growth, resulting in transient as well as permanent behavioral disturbances in exposed offspring, and resulting in permanent alterations in neocortical cytoarchitecture.
- Functional Brain Mapping of Cocaine ActionCharacterization of the neural substrates of cocaine-induced alterations in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals in rat model including the underlying biological processes that contribute to the fMRI signal, an analysis of contributions due to the direct effects of cocaine on the vasculature and on target neurons.
