Since starting in the SCN lab as a graduate student 3 years ago, Kimmy Fleming has been investigating the neural and behavioral correlates of low sensitivity to the acute effects of alcohol, a known risk factor for the development of problem drinking.
Now, with a new grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, she will take this work in an exciting new direction for her doctoral dissertation. The primary aim of Fleming’s grant project is to determine whether an influential model of addiction developed with studies of rodents (Incentive Sensitization Theory) translates to humans, using an innovative experimental design that will permit examination of the neural processes linking neutral learning stimuli with alcohol-related cues (the smell of alcohol).