David S Jacobs

Oregon Health & Science University | OHSU · Department of Behavioral Neuroscience

Psychosis is a hallmark of schizophrenia. It typically emerges in late adolescence and is associated with dopamine abnormalities and aberrant salience. Most genes associated with schizophrenia risk involve ubiquitous targets that may not explain delayed emergence of dopaminergic disruptions. This includes GRIN2A, the gene encoding the GluN2A subuni...

Dietary maternal deficiency in omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) is a potential risk factor for the development of anxiety and other mood disorders in children and adolescents. Here, we used a previously characterized maternal n-3 PUFA dietary deficiency model in rats to determine the impact of postweaning supplementation on adolescent...

Background Anxiety is a common symptom of several mental health disorders and adversely affects motivated behaviors. Anxiety can emerge from associating risk of future harm while engaged in goal-guided actions. Using a recently developed behavioral paradigm to model this aspect of anxiety, we investigated the role of two cortical subregions, the pr...

Previously, we developed a novel model for anxiety during motivated behavior by training rats to perform a task where actions executed to obtain a reward were probabilistically punished and observed that after learning, neuronal activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) represent the relationship between...

Studies of instrumental responding often include the delivery of a cue that is coincident with the delivery of the reinforcer. One purpose of this is for the cue to be removed during extinction and then presented later to assess whether responding returns (cue-induced reinstatement). In two experiments, we examined the effects of having a cue assoc...

Previously, we developed a novel model for anxiety during motivated behavior by training rats to perform a task where actions executed to obtain a reward were probabilistically punished and observed that after learning, neuronal activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) encode the relationship between ac...

Monoamine releasers such as d-methamphetamine (d-MA) can reduce cocaine use in laboratory studies and have been forwarded for the management of cocaine use disorder (CUD). However, the proven abuse liability of d-MA has limited enthusiasm for clinical use. The levorotatory isomer of MA, l-MA, appears to have lesser stimulant effects, possibly due t...

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is involved in adaptive control of behavior and optimizing action selection. When an organism is experiencing an aversive event, such as a sustained state of anxiety or an overt experience of fear or stress, the mechanisms that govern PFC regulation of action selection may be critical for survival. A large body of litera...

Actions executed toward obtaining a reward are frequently associated with the probability of harm occurring during action execution. Learning this probability allows for appropriate computation of future harm to guide action selection. Impaired learning of this probability may be critical for the pathogenesis of anxiety or reckless and impulsive be...

Rationale: The therapeutic potential of monoamine releasers with prominent dopaminergic effects is hindered by their high abuse liability. Objectives: The present study examined the effects of several novel "norepinephrine (NE)-preferring" monoamine releasers relative to non-selective monoamine releasers, d-amphetamine and d-methamphetamine, in...

Background: Accumulating evidence suggests that the FDA-approved serotonin 5-HT2C receptor agonist, lorcaserin (Belviq(®)), may be a promising candidate for the management of substance use disorders, including nicotine addiction. The present study was conducted to determine the efficacy and selectivity of acute or continuous lorcaserin treatment f...

Recent clinical and preclinical research has suggested that cannabidiol (CBD) and Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) have interactive effects on measures of cognition; however, the nature of these interactions is not yet fully characterized. To address this, we investigated the effects of Δ9-THC and CBD independently and in combination with proposed...