On April 17th, Suraj Neelamagam presented his senior thesis at the UPenn Neuroscience Research Symposium. Conducted in collaboration with Antonia Caffrey and Riley Merkel under the advisement of Dr. Heath Schmidt, his research explored how GLP-1 receptors in the central … Read More

Building on their earlier work showing that appetite-regulating peptides reduce alcohol intake via the paraventricular thalamus, the team has turned their attention to cocaine — with striking results. Their new EBioMedicine study finds that tirzepatide, a GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonist approved … Read More

We’ve long known that appetite-regulating peptides play a role in alcohol use disorder — but where in the brain does this happen? Our latest study points to a surprising player: the paraventricular thalamus (PVT). In our recent paper, we found … Read More

One in nine Americans will undergo a surgical procedure during their lifetime; for some, the treatment of postoperative pain represents their first prolonged exposure to an opioid. New persistent opioid use (NPOU)—defined as continued use beyond the typical three-month recovery … Read More

Grace Zhang presented a poster at the Mid-Atlantic Pharmacology Society 2025 Conference at the Smilow Center for Translational Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Working with collaborators Antonia Caffery and Ricardo Petrilli Fortuna, Zhang investigated Exendin-Phe (Ex-Phe), a biased GLP-1 … Read More

In August, Rae successfully defended her thesis entitled “Behavioral and Circuit-Level Insights into GLP-1 Receptor Agonist-Mediated Reduction of Drug Seeking”. Since joining the lab in 2019, Rae has consistently produced exceptional and impactful work. She has also been an incredible … Read More

On June 2, 2025, Antonia, Enzo, and colleagues published a study in the British Journal of Pharmacology titled ‘A GLP-1R/Y1 receptor/Y2 receptor triple agonist decreases fentanyl-evoked dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens and attenuates fentanyl taking and seeking in rats’. … Read More

On July 10th, researchers from the Jerlhag and Schmidt laboratories published groundbreaking findings in European Neuropsychopharmacology demonstrating that semaglutide—a GLP-1R medication currently used for diabetes and weight management—significantly reduces cocaine-seeking behaviors in laboratory studies. The study, titled “Semaglutide suppresses cocaine … Read More

Austin Pothikamjorn has officially graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and is leaving the Schmidt Lab to begin an exciting new chapter. He will be joining the Division of Addiction Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA … Read More