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Robert Meisel, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Neuroscience E-mail: meisel@umn.edu

Research Interests:

Behavioral Disorders are often pathological extensions of normal behavioral processes. Just as depression may be an inappropriate expression of grief addiction can be viewed as a corruption of motivated behaviors. The focus of this laboratory's research is the use of female sexual behavior in rodents as a model system to further our understanding of neural mechanisms of motivation, and by extension compare these mechanisms to those mediating addiction. One approach that we take is based on the observation that repeated drug use produces changes in the structure and cellular properties of dopaminergic neurons. We have found that a similar neural plasticity in dopamine pathways is seen following repeated sexual experience in female hamsters. By comparing neural changes to drugs with those resulting from engaging in natural behaviors, we can parse the neural components of drug addiction consequent to exposure to powerful pharmacological agents from the endogenous neural plasticity that underlies activities in everyday life.

Selected Publications:

(For a comprehensive list of recent publications, refer to PubMed, a service provided by the National Library of Medicine.)

Bradley, K.C., Mullins, A.J., Meisel, R.L. and Watts, V.J. (2004). Sexual experience alters dopamine D1 receptor mediated cyclic AMP produiction in the nucleus accumbens of female Syrian hamsters. Synapse, 53, 20-27.

Bradley, K.C., Bouware, M.B., Jiang, H., Doerge, R.W., Meisel, R.L. and Mermelstein, P.M. (2005). Sexual experience generates distinct patterns of gene expression within the nucleus accumbens and dorsal stratum of female Syrian hamsters. Genes, Brain and Behavior, 4, 31-44.

Shelley, D.N. and Meisel, R.L. (2005). The effects of mating stumulation on c-Fos immunoreactivity in the female hamster medial amygdala are region and context dependent. Hormones and Behavior, 47, 212-222.

Bradley, K.C., Haas, A.R. and Meisel, R.L. (2005). 6-Hydroxydopamine lesions in female hamsters abolish the sensitized effects of sexual experience on copulatory interactions with males. Behavioral Neuroscience, 119, 224-232.

Chester, J.A., Mullins, A.J., Nguyen, C.H., Watts, V.J. and Meisel, R.L. (2006). Repeated quinpirole treatments produce neurochemical sensitization and associated behavioral changes in female hamsters. Psychopharmacology, 188, 53-62.

Meisel, R.L. and Mullins, A.J. (2006). Sexual experience in female rodents: cellular mechanisms and functional consequences. Brain Research, 1126, 66-75.

Current Graduate Students:

Valerie Hedges (Neuroscience, University of Minnesota).