Substance abuse is a chronic, persistent problem. The main goal of my laboratory is to understand how stress and chronic exposure to ethanol and cocaine produce long-term changes in the activity of neurons relevant to the development and expression of addiction. Since our initial discovery, where my laboratory provided the first evidence that a drug of abuse (cocaine) produces a form of synaptic memory called long-term potentiation (LTP), we have continued to study how long-lasting changes in cellular activity contribute to addictive behaviors. Our hope is that through a better understanding of how synapses are changed by drug exposure, we will be able to design new therapies to assist in the cessation of this pathological behavior.
The Bonci Lab is led by Dr. Antonello Bonci, who is a neuroscientist and the Chief of the Section on Synapses and Circuitry at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The lab is located at the NIDA Intramural Research Program in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Dr. Bonci is a leading expert in the field of addiction research, with a particular focus on the neural basis of drug addiction and the development of novel treatments for addiction. He has made significant contributions to our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying addiction and reward, and his research has been published in numerous scientific journals. In addition to his work at the Bonci Lab, Dr. Bonci is also an adjunct faculty member at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
The Bonci Lab uses a variety of techniques, including electrophysiology, optogenetics, and imaging, to study the neural mechanisms underlying addiction and reward. The lab’s research has contributed to a better understanding of how drugs of abuse alter brain function and behavior and has identified potential targets for the development of treatments for addiction.