Christopher L. Cunningham
Professor, Behavioral Neuroscience
Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine
e-mail: cunningh@ohsu.edu
Major Areas: Behavioral Pharmacology, Learning and Motivation, Behavioral Genetics
Previous Positions
Interim Chair, Behavioral Neuroscience, OHSU
Vice-Chair, Medical Psychology, OHSU
Assistant/Associate/Professor, Medical Psychology, OHSU
Visiting Assistant Professor, Psychology, Indiana University
NIMH Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Yale University
Education
A.B. (1971) University of Notre Dame
M.A. (1973) University of Iowa
Ph.D. (1976) University of Oregon Medical School
Research Interests
Research in this lab is generally concerned with motivational effects of abused drugs, with special emphasis on mechanisms of drug-seeking behavior. Favorite behavioral procedures include: place conditioning (preference and aversion), taste conditioning, operant self-administration, and home cage drinking. In some projects, studies are designed to identify and characterize the physiological, neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and molecular systems that mediate drug reward and aversion. Some of these studies involve systemic or intracranial administration of the pharmacological agents (e.g., receptor agonists/antagonists). For example, in a recent project, infusion of a nonspecific opioid antagonist or a GABA-B agonist into the VTA reduced expression of ethanol conditioned place preference, suggesting an important role of opioid and GABA-B receptors within that brain area in ethanol conditioned reward. The lab is also engaged in projects that examine the roles played by environment, experience, and learning. For example, some studies address the role of Pavlovian conditioning, instrumental learning, and other processes on development of drug tolerance and sensitization, and the relationship between tolerance/sensitization and drug reward/aversion. Other studies are more directly concerned with increasing our knowledge about current models of drug-seeking behavior and developing better models. In one series of studies, for example, we are exploring the paradoxical findings that alcohol appears to produce both positive and negative motivational effects, depending on the behavioral procedure. In another series of studies, we are developing new models of intragastric self-administration in rats and mice that are alcohol dependent. Finally, several projects focus on genetic influences, with the long-term goal of identifying specific genes that underlie the rewarding and aversive effects of abused drugs. These studies involve various animal genetic models, including selectively bred mouse lines, recombinant inbred strains, congenic strains, and knockout/transgenic strains.
Cunningham, C. L., Patel, P., & Milner, L. (2006). Spatial location is critical for conditioning place preference with visual but not tactile stimuli. Behavioral Neuroscience, 120:1115-1132.
Fidler, T. L., Clews, T. W., & Cunningham, C. L. (2006). Re-establishing an intragastric ethanol self-infusion model in rats. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research , 30:414-428.
Gremel, C. M., Gabriel, K. I., & Cunningham, C. L. (2006). Topiramate does not affect the acquisition or expression of ethanol conditioned place preference in DBA/2J or C57BL/6J mice Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research , 30:783-790.
Bechtholt AJ and Cunningham CL (2005) Ethanol-induced conditioned place preference is expressed through a ventral tegmental area dependent mechanism. Behavioral Neuroscience . 119:213-223.
Gabriel KI and Cunningham CL (2005) Effects of topiramate on ethanol and saccharin consumption and preferences in C57BL/6J mice. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research . 29:75-80.
Phillips TJ, Broadbent J, Burkhart-Kasch S, Henderson C, Wenger CD, McMullin C, McKinnon CS, and Cunningham CL (2005) Genetic correlational analyses of ethanol reward and aversion phenotypes in short term selected mouse lines bred for ethanol drinking or ethanol-induced conditioned taste aversion. Behavioral Neuroscience . 119:892-910.
Boyce-Rustay JM and Cunningham CL (2004) The role of NMDA receptor binding sites in ethanol place conditioning. Behavioral Neuroscience . 118:822-834.
Cunningham CL, Feree NK, and Howard MA (2003) Apparatus bias and place conditioning with ethanol in mice. Psychopharmacology . 170:409-422.
Broadbent J, Muccino KJ, and Cunningham CL (2002) Ethanol-induced conditioned taste aversion in fifteen inbred mouse strains. Behavioral Neuroscience . 116:138-148.
Cunningham CL, Tull LE, Rindal KE, Meyer PJ (2002) Distal and proximal pre-exposure to ethanol in the place conditioning task: Tolerance to aversive effect, sensitization to activating effect, but no change in rewarding effect. Psychopharmacology . 160:414-424.