Mahler Lab
Principal Investigator: Stephen Vincent Mahler
Institution: University of California, Irvine (Irvine, CA)
Primary Subfield: Neuroscience
Recruitment Status: Inquire for rotation/fellowship opportunities
Research Focus
Project Summary Addiction, and opioid use disorder (OUD) in particular, is a scourge on American life. Though we know much from animal models about how opioid drugs act on the brain, we have yet to develop new OUD treatments based on this knowledge. Why is this? Our lab, like others in recent years, have argued that in part it is due to a lack of translationally-relevant rodent models that capture the key behavioral features of addiction, such as the maladaptive, compulsive, and relapsing use that develops in a subset of individuals. In humans, OUD is characterized by continued use of opioids despite negative consequences, preoccupation with using these drugs, and relapse to drug use after quitting, and for long-lasting opioids like heroin, also escalation of use, tolerance, and withdrawal. Each of these translationally-relevant behavioral phenomena can now be modelled in rodents, but the neural networks underlying each of them are yet poorly understood. The ventral pallidum (VP), and especially its dense projections to the ventral tegmental area (VTA), have drawn increasing attention for their potent roles in motivation and addiction. We recently showed VP neurons are essential fo…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R01DA055849-04: Ventral Pallidum Circuits Underlying Preclinical Models of Opioid Addiction (2026)
- 5U01DA053826-05: Dynamic epigenomic landscape of opioid abuse following early-life adversity (2026)
- 5P50DA044118-07: Impact of Cannabinoid Across the Lifespan (ICAL) (2026)
- 5U01DA053826-04: Dynamic epigenomic landscape of opioid abuse following early-life adversity (2025)
- 5R01DA055849-03: Ventral Pallidum Circuits Underlying Preclinical Models of Opioid Addiction (2025)
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