Our recent publication, “Liraglutide attenuates nicotine self-administration as well as nicotine seeking and hyperphagia during withdrawal in male and female rats”, and nicotine work were highlighted in an article by Insider.

Nicotine cessation is associated with increased consumption of highly palatable foods and body weight gain in most smokers. Concerns about body weight gain are a major barrier to maintaining long-term smoking abstinence, and current treatments for nicotine use disorder (NUD) … Read More

    Nicotine intake, whether through tobacco smoking or e-cigarettes, remains a global health concern. An emerging preclinical literature indicates that parental nicotine exposure produces behavioral, physiological, and molecular changes in subsequent generations. However, the heritable effects of voluntary parental … Read More

Schmidt Lab members, Riley Merkel and Rae Herman, attended the 15th annual Behavior, Biology, and Chemistry: Translational Research in Substance Use Disorders in San Antonio March 24-26th. Riley and Rae both received travel awards to attend BBC 2023, present their … Read More

Congratulations to our graduate student, Rae Herman, for being awarded a National Research Service Award (NRSA) F31 predoctoral fellowship from NIH!! Rae is eager to utilize her funding to expand her exploration of GLP-1R circuits in the interpeduncular nucleus (IPN) … Read More

Schmidt Lab members Antonia Caffrey, Rae Herman, and Riley Merkel presented their research at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, California (Nov. 12 – 16).  In addition to displaying their original findings, the lab also … Read More

Opioid exposure is known to cause transcriptomic changes in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). However, no studies to date have investigated cell type-specific transcriptomic changes associated with volitional opioid taking. Here, we use single nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNAseq) to comprehensively characterize … Read More

  The University of Pennsylvania Summer Undergraduate Internship Program (SUIP) is a 10-week intensive research opportunity for visiting undergraduate students. This summer, the Schmidt Lab was fortunate to welcome Camille Carthy, Lafayette College Class of 2023, as a SUIP intern.  … Read More

Congratulations to Amanda Moreno (B.A.), Riley Merkel (B.A.), Kamryn Stecyk (B.S.), and Suditi Rahematpura (B.S.) (pictured left to right) on their recent graduation from the University of Pennsylvania and the Schmidt Lab as a part of the Undergraduate Class of … Read More

Congratulations to Rachel Carpenter on the successful completion of her senior capstone project in the Schmidt Lab! For Carpenter’s high school capstone project, she had the opportunity to observe and shadow Dr. Schmidt and other members of the Schmidt lab … Read More