Professor Andrew Lawrence
- Prof Andrew Lawrence
BSc (Hons) PhD (Loughborough)
Professorial Research Fellow
Brain Injury and Repair Group
Laboratory Head, Addiction Neuroscience Laboratory
Contact Details
Email: | |
Phone: | +61 (0)3 8344 0414 |
Fax: | +61 (0)3 9348 1707 |
Research Interests
- Investigation of the neural pathways implicated in drug-seeking behaviour and additionally, the association between mood disorders, stress and drug-seeking behaviour.
- Investigation of molecular mediators of drug-seeking behaviour / drug-induced plasticity.
Laboratory Techniques
- Operant self-administration of alcohol, cocaine and opiates in rats and mice.
- Behavioural sensitization to drugs of abuse.
- Conditioned place preference to drugs of abuse.
- Assessment of affective and cognitive behaviour following acute or chronic treatment with drugs of abuse.
- Quantitative gene and protein expression / neurochemistry.
- Neuropharmacological interventions to regulate drug-seeking.
- Functional neuroanatomy / examining circuitry related to drug-seeking.
- Conditional transgenics.
Additional Information
- Our laboratory uses both rats and mice as experimental models. The latter approach enables us to probe the role of specific genes in drug-seeking and / or drug-induced plasticity.
Publications and Articles
Please see PubMed.
Selected Recent Publications
Lawrence, A. J., Parish, C.L., Chen, F., Lodge, D. J., Krstew, E.V., Card, K., Finkelstein, D.I. and Horne, M.K. (2005) Chronic corticotropin releasing factor type 1 receptor antagonism with antalarmin regulates the dopaminergic system of Fawn-Hooded rats. J. Neurochem., 94, 1523-1534.
Cowen, M.S., Adams, C., Kraehenbuehl, T., Vengeliene, V. & Lawrence, A.J. (2005) The acute anti-craving effect of acamprosate in alcohol-preferring rats is associated with modulation of the mesolimbic dopamine system. Addiction Biol., 10, 233-242.
Cowen, M.S., Djouma, E. and Lawrence, A.J. (2005) The mGlu5 antagonist MTEP reduces ethanol self- administration in multiple strains of alcohol-preferring rats and regulates olfactory glutamatergic systems. J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther., 315, 590-600.
McPherson, C.S and Lawrence, A.J. (2006) Exposure to amphetamine in rats during periadolescence establishes behavioural and extrastriatal neural sensitization in adulthood. Int. J. Neuropsychopharmacol., 9, 377-392.
Short, J.L., Ledent, C., Drago, J. and Lawrence, A.J. (2006) Receptor cross-talk: characterization of mice deficient in dopamine D1 and adenosine A2A receptors. Neuropsychopharmacology, 31, 525-534.
Liang, J.H., Chen, F., Krstew, E., Cowen, M.S., Carroll, F.Y., Crawford, D., Beart, P.M. & Lawrence, A.J. (2006) The GABAB receptor allosteric modulator CGP7930, like baclofen, reduces operant self-administration of ethanol in alcohol-preferring rats. Neuropharmacology, 50, 632-639.
Short, J.L., Drago, J. & Lawrence, A.J. (2006) Comparison of ethanol preference and neurochemical measures of mesolimbic dopamine and adenosine systems across different strains of mice. Alc. Clin. Exp. Res., 30, 606-620.
Short, J.L., Ledent, C., Borrelli, E., Drago, J. & Lawrence, A.J. (2006) Genetic interdependence of adenosine and dopamine receptors: evidence from receptor knockout mice. Neuroscience, 139, 661-670.
Djouma, E., Card, K., Lodge, D.J. & Lawrence, A.J. (2006) The CRF1 receptor antagonist, antalarmin, reverses isolation-induced upregulation of dopamine D2 receptors in the amygdala and nucleus accumbens of Fawn-Hooded rats. Eur. J. Neurosci., 23, 3319-3327.
Lawrence, A.J., Cowen, M.S., Yang, H-J., Chen, F. & Oldfield, B. (2006) The orexin system regulates alcohol-seeking in rats. Br. J. Pharmacol., 148, 752–759.
Cowen, M.S., Krstew, E. and Lawrence, A.J. (2006) Assessing appetitive and consummatory phases of ethanol self-administration in C57BL/6J mice under operant conditions: regulation by mGlu5 receptor antagonism. Psychopharmacology, in press.
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Depression
Around one million Australian adults and 100,000 young people live with depression each year.