Rats & Weed

The neuroscience of hitherto illegal (though rarely harmful) substances such as cannabis is an underexplored field.  I was able to help with a small exploration of this field in 2011 with an advanced behavioral neuroscience class at Reed under Dr. Paul Currie.  Our work examined the anxiogenic effects of endocannabinoids in the amygdala when potentiated by overexposure to ghrelin.  Essentially we studied how rats get hangry.  As a result of this work I was published on an abstract:

Wauson, S.E.R., Voss, W,N., Davis, K.R., Schuette, L.M., Angeles, M.J., Bauer,  P.E., Davidson, G.D., Heichman, S.L., Khawaja M., Kuziel, G.M., Naiman, M.S., Nguyen, E.T., Perry, J.G., Turvey, M.E., Yee, M.N., & Currie, P.J. (2012). Amygdalar urocortin and endocannabinoid modulation of ghrelin-induced anxiety. Presented at the annual meeting of the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience/Society for Neuroscience, 15 October 2012.