Achievement

To better understand nicotine addiction, researchers use neural imaging techniques to study the brain's responses to anticipated rewards. IGERT student Maggie Sweitzer and her advisor Eric Donny at the University of Pittsburgh recently found that smokers who had been abstinent for 24 hours showed dimished response in the ventral striatum to an anticipated monetary reward, but enhanced response to an anticipated smoking reward, compared to when they had not been abstinent. The goal of her research is to understand the association between neuroimaging data, genetic factors, and cessation success. Sweitzer has been receiving training in genetic analysis from Drs. Kathryn Rocklein and Steve Manuck. Using polymerase chain reaction and gel eletrophoresis techniques, she completed the genotyping of 35 smokers and found that 9 carried an altered Taq1A gene and 9 carried an altered DRD4 gene. Both genes affect dopamine receptor function (involved in reward signaling) in the ventral striatum.