Emotional behavior is regulated by a host of chemicals, including neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, acting on specific circuits within the brain.\u00a0 There is strong evidence for the existence of both endogenous stress and anti-stress systems.\u00a0 Chronic exposure to drugs of abuse and stress are hypothesized to modulate the relative balance of activity of these systems within key circuitry in the brain leading to dysregulated emotional behavior.\u00a0 One of the primary focuses of the Kash lab is to understand how chronic drugs of abuse and stress alter neuronal function, focusing on these stress and anti-stress systems in brain circuitry important for anxiety-like behavior.\u00a0 In particular, we are interested in defining alterations in synaptic function, modulation and plasticity using a combination of whole-cell patch-clamp physiology, biochemistry and mouse models.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":4359,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"affiliation":[40,41],"database-category":[290],"expert-year":[287],"class_list":["post-4358","faculty-expert","type-faculty-expert","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","affiliation-bowles-center","affiliation-pharm","database-category-neuroscience-and-psychiatric-disorders","expert-year-287","odd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n