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PULSe Home > Training Groups > Integrative Neuroscience > Faculty
Robert L. Meisel
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Professor-Department of Psychological Sciences
Ph.D., University of Connecticut
Contact Info:
meisel@psych.purdue.edu
765-494-7669
Training Group(s):
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Current Research Interests:
Behavioral disorders are often pathological extensions of normal behavioral processes. Just as depression may be an inappropriate expression of grief, drug addiction may be a corruption of normal motivated behaviors. The overall goal of this laboratorys research is to use female sexual behavior in rodents as a model system to further our understanding of neural mechanisms of motivation, and by extension compare these mechanisms to those mediating abnormal behaviors. One approach that we take is based on the observation that repeated drug use produces changes in the structure and cellular properties of dopaminergic neurons. We have found that similar neural plasticity in dopamine pathways is seen following repeated sexual experience in female hamsters. By comparing neural changes to drugs versus engaging in natural behaviors, we can separate the neural properties of drug addiction that result from exposure to artificial pharmacological agents from the endogenous neural plasticity that underlies activities in everyday life.
Selected Publications:
Bradley, K.C., Mullins, A.J., Meisel, R.L. and Watts, V.J. (2004). Sexual experience alters dopamine D1 receptor mediated cyclic AMP production in the nucleus accumbens of female Syrian hamsters. Synapse, 53, 20-27.
Bradley, K.C., Boulware, M.B., Jiang, H., Doerge, R.W., Meisel, R.L. and Mermelstein, P.M. (2005). Sexual experience generates distinct patterns of gene expression within the nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum of female Syrian hamsters. Genes, Brain and Behavior, 4, 31-44.
Shelley, D.N. and Meisel, R.L. (2005). The effects of mating stimulation on c-Fos immunoreactivity in the female hamster medial amygdala are region and context dependent. Hormones and Behavior, 47, 212-222.
Bradley, K.C., Haas, A.R. and Meisel, R.L. (2005). 6-Hydroxydopamine lesions in female hamsters abolish the sensitized effects of sexual experience on copulatory interactions with males. Behavioral Neuroscience, 119, 224-232.
Chester, J.A., Mullins, A.J., Nguyen, C.H., Watts, V.J. and Meisel, R.L. (2006). Repeated quinpirole treatments produce neurochemical sensitization and associated behavioral changes in female hamsters. Psychopharmacology, 188, 53-62.
Meisel, R.L. and Mullins, A.J. (2006). Sexual experience in female rodents: cellular mechanisms and functional consequences. Brain Research, 1126, 66-75.
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