Molecular Psychiatry
June 11, 2026
Ritchy Hodebourg, Lillian Duncan, Eric Dereschewitz et al.
The rising legal acceptance of cannabis and the high comorbidity between cannabis use disorder (CUD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) highlight the importance of understanding how stress and cannabis influence the brain. We recently discovered that cannabinoid use promotes two PTSD-like symptoms: avoidance coping behaviors and the generalization of stress-coping responses to a neutral...
Research Square
August 21, 2025
Ritchy Hodebourg, Lillian Duncan, Eric Dereschewitz et al.
preprint
The rising legal acceptance of cannabis and the high comorbidity between cannabis use disorder (CUD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) highlight the importance of understanding how stress and cannabis influence the brain. We recently discovered that cannabis use promotes two PTSD-like symptoms: avoidance coping behaviors and the generalization of stress-coping responses to a neutral...
Addiction Biology
August 2023
Constanza Garcia-Keller, Madeline Hohmeister, Kailyn Seidling et al.
Drugs of abuse induce cell type-specific adaptations in D1- and D2-medium spiny neurons (MSNs) in the nucleus accumbens core (NAcore) that can bias signalling towards D1-MSNs and enhance relapse vulnerability. Whether Δ9 -tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) use initiates similar neuroadaptations is unknown. D1- and D2-Cre transgenic rats were transfected with Cre-dependent reporters and trained to...
Neuropsychopharmacology
April 2022
Ritchy Hodebourg, Michael E Meyerink, Ayteria D Crow et al.
Individuals diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are often comorbid for substance use disorders. Cannabis is widely used by PSTD patients, and the literature is mixed on whether cannabis use ameliorates or exacerbates patient responses to stress-associated conditioned stimuli (stress-CS). We determined if cannabis use affects responsivity to stress-CS in rats receiving 2 h...
Addiction Biology
November 2020
Daniela Neuhofer, Sade M Spencer, Vivian C Chioma et al.
Glutamatergic plasticity in the nucleus accumbens core (NAcore) is a key neuronal process in appetitive learning and contributes to pathologies such as drug addiction. Understanding how this plasticity factors into cannabis addiction and relapse has been hampered by the lack of a rodent model of cannabis self-administration. We used intravenous self-administration of two constituents of...
Biological Psychiatry
October 15, 2018
Sade M Spencer, Daniela Neuhofer, Vivian C Chioma et al.
Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug, but knowledge of the neurological consequences of cannabis use is deficient. Two primary components of cannabis are Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). We established a THC+CBD model of self-administration and reinstated drug seeking to determine if, similar to other addictive drugs, cannabis produces enduring synaptic changes in...