Antonello Bonci, M.D.
 

Professor of Neurology
Howard J. Weinberger Chair in Addiction Research
Phone: (510) 985-3890
Lab:   (510) 985-3891
Fax:   (510) 985-3101
E-mail: antonello.bonci@ucsf.edu

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.