What is the training mission of the IUPUI Psychobiology program?
The program trains graduate and post-doctoral students for careers in research and teaching about the behavioral and neurobiological aspects of drug abuse. The program emphasizes the use of animal models to study brain and behavioral mechanisms of drug self-administration, actions of addictive drugs on brain and behavior, neuroadaptative responses to chronic drug exposure, and effects of developmental exposure to drugs on brain development. A mentor model is followed, in which the students work closely with individual faculty. Training is designed to promote a comprehensive understanding of the neural bases of behavior, linking neurobiological actions of drugs of abuse to the processes or consequences of abuse, addiction, or dependence. Students learn to perform integrative studies of brain and behavior that combine multiple levels of analysis (behavioral, neural systems, and cellular/molecular neuroscience). Current approaches using animal models that address key problems of drug abus
