Brik Kochoian

Emory University | EU · Department of Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology

A large body of work during the past several decades has been focused on therapeutic strategies to control L-DOPA-induced dyskinesias (LIDs), common motor complications of long-term L-DOPA therapy in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Yet, LIDs remain a clinical challenge for the management of patients with advanced disease. Glutamatergic dysregulation of s...

Behavioral flexibility—that is, the ability to deviate from established behavioral sequences—is critical for navigating dynamic environments and requires the durable encoding and retrieval of new memories to guide future choice. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) supports outcome-guided behaviors. However, the coordinated neural circuitry and cellular...

Phosphodiesterase 9 (PDE9) degrades selectively the second messenger cGMP, which is an important molecule of dopamine signaling pathways in striatal projection neurons (SPNs). In this study, we assessed the effects of a selective PDE9 inhibitor (PDE9i) in the primate model of Parkinson's disease (PD). Six macaques with advanced parkinsonism were us...

RationaleIt is critical to identify potential risk factors, such as a history of early life stress (ELS), that may confer specific vulnerabilities to increased drug intake.Objective In this study, we examined whether male and female rhesus monkeys with a history of ELS (infant maltreatment; MALT) demonstrated significantly greater cocaine intake co...