Reward system dysregulation, including drug abuse and drug dependence, and associated disorders such as gambling, depression, and obesity, are major causes of human suffering in contemporary society. The mission of the Cowan Lab is to synthesize information from the molecular level to the societal level to forge a greater understanding of the neural basis of such conditions.
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Brain regions activated during comparison of visual (cannabis cues > nature cues) across 16 cannabis-dependent adults. Cannabis cue-induced brain activation correlates with drug craving in limbic and visual salience regions: Preliminary results. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24035535 -
Ecstasy (MDMA) polydrug users had greater activation than non-ecstasy users in bilateral posterior parietal cortex during semantic encoding (word > non-word). Human ecstasy (MDMA) polydrug users have altered brain activation during semantic processing. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23241648 -
Feeding-related brain network integrity is disrupted in childhood obesity -
Appetitive brain network regions are more strongly activated by visual food cues in obese children compared to healthy weight children -
Lifetime ecstasy use correlates positively with serotonin-2A-binding potential in the ecstasy (MDMA) user group after adjusting for birth control, estrogen, and age. Brain Serotonin Function in MDMA (Ecstasy) Users: Evidence for Persisting Neurotoxicity http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23147495 -
Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital | Department of Psychiatry | Psychiatric Neuroimaging Program | Vanderbilt University School of Medicine | 1601 23rd Avenue South, Suite 3057 | Nashville, TN 37212