This week in the lab has been a lot of reading for me. I have been working on reading various papers on Neuropsychopharmacology, which is the field of study the George lab is categorized under. Neuropsychopharmacology is essentially the study of how drugs affect the mind, as well as behavior; for us we do this by experimenting with rats because of how similar they are genetically to humans and their intelligence makes it easy to train them for experiments. I’ve been working with Brent, another member of the lab, to broaden my understanding of the field of study the lab is in. I learned a lot of interesting information, to include it all would be way too much, but for a quick example we can use the cycle of addiction which is a huge part of understanding the field. This was a very interesting thing I learned and I won’t go into too much detail but, essentially, drug addiction consists of a three stage cycle; binge/intoxication, withdrawal/negative effect, and preoccupation/anticipation.
Addiction diagram from addiction paper by George F. Koob
Each stage is driven by different parts of the brain which feed into each other. The first stage is self explanatory, the individual just takes the drug to feel the high. The second stage is where the person no longer has the drug so they go into withdrawal. This stage has more to it than that because the individual now has made a shift in the brain. The person is no longer taking the drug to feel high but to escape the negative feeling of withdrawal. And the third stage is when the individual craves returning to stage 1 or intoxication. It’s anticipating the next time the individual is going to take the drug and nothing else has the same importance. The individual isn’t worried about anything but the next time he gets to intoxicate himself and feel high. I’ve learned a tremendous amount of information thus far and I’m still learning. Recently the other intern and I have gotten another paper to read and present together to the lab so we’ll see how that goes. It’s been a lot learning so much lately and there’s been so much reading and note taking involved but the information is very interesting. This week for fun I went down to La Jolla Shores beach which was very beautiful. I saw some extraordinary houses which are incredibly expensive but amazing as well. I spent Saturday there and after went to have dinner with another interns family. They are Scottish/Columbian and the dinner was Columbian which was absolutely amazing. I also went to see the new movie The Lion King which was fun and also took a walk of the mall. The weather is still always incredible here every day. Until next week.
Incredible house on La Jolla Shores beach
View of La Jolla Shores from a hill
(All credit to George F. Koob for the information from his paper on Addiction)
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