Winter 2016: Energy Evolution
From carbon dioxide conversion to landfill mining, researchers at UTA are seeking viable alternative energy options.
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From carbon dioxide conversion to landfill mining, researchers at UTA are seeking viable alternative energy options.
Found in everything from space shuttles to dental fillings, composite materials have thoroughly infiltrated modern society. But their potential is still greatly untapped, offering researchers ample opportunity for discovery.
Within the particle showers created at the Large Hadron Collider, answers to some of the universe’s mysteries are waiting.
Model systems like pigeons can help illuminate our own evolutionary and genomic history.
UT Arlington's tiny windmills are bringing renewable energy to a whole new scale.
The stability of our highways, pipelines, and even manholes is reaching a breaking point.
Scientists believe they have discovered a subatomic particle that is crucial to understanding the universe.
UT Arlington researchers unlock clues to the human body’s most mysterious and complex organ.
UT Arlington researchers probe the hidden world of microbes in search of renewable energy sources.
Wounded soldiers are benefiting from Robert Gatchel’s program that combines physical rehabilitation with treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Tiny sensors implanted in the body show promise in combating acid reflux disease, pain and other health problems.
Nanotechnology researchers pursue hybrid silicon chips with life-saving potential.
Biomedical engineers combat diseases with procedures that are painless to patients.
Linda Perrotti believes that fluctuating estrogen levels can make women increasingly vulnerable to the rewarding effects of cocaine, even opening them up to a risk of addiction.
The associate professor of psychology received a three-year, $413,980 grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund biomolecular research on the effects of changing hormone levels on behavioral adaptations. She and her team are using rodent models to focus on three specific molecules associated with drug addiction and reward.
The repeated administration of cocaine causes molecular adaptations in the brain, which trigger changes in behavior that are focused on obtaining more cocaine. These neuroadaptations primarily affect the dopamine reward system; long-term exposure to the drug can make these changes permanent, causing the individual to develop a neurobiological disposition to seeking cocaine.
Dr. Perrotti and her team’s preclinical work suggested that women given hormone treatment preferred higher doses of cocaine; this could indicate that estrogen alters dopamine signaling and influences the strength of cocaine-associated clues.
“We need to find out how it affects learning and memory circuits, making drugs more or less rewarding,” she says. “Compared to men, women experience higher levels of craving and relapse during periods of abstinence and take larger amounts of cocaine during bouts of relapse. Our study could lead to customizable and differentiated addiction treatment and prevention measures for post-menopausal women, women on hormone replacement therapy, women on hormone-based birth control, etc.”
Photograph by Crystal L. Daniel/EyeEm