The program proposed here provides interdisciplinary, graduate training in areas related to drug and alcohol abuse. The objective of the program is to train predoctoral students to pursue a career either in basic or in more clinically-related research on drug abuse. This program involves three different departments at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1) Psychology 2) Neurobiology and 3) Pharmacology as well as laboratories at the Alcohol Center, Environmental Protection Agency and the Research Triangle Institute. Presently, each of these departments has an active predoctoral training program and provides some support for students with research interests in drug abuse. Nevertheless, a training program specifically focused on research on drug abuse would encourage more students to pursue research in this area as well as improve the training they obtain by providing a focused curriculum and access to a more diverse research environment. Selected faculty from the departments of Psychology, Pharmacology and Neurobiology provide a core of individuals whose research and teaching activities, while distinct, serve collectively to provide a research focus in several areas related to drug abuse. These areas include behavioral pharmacology and toxicology of various drugs of abuse, neurobiology of opioid and dopamine systems, neuropharmacology of ethanol and other drugs of abuse, the experimental analysis of behavior, investigations of the immune system and drugs of abuse and clinical psychopharmacology. Moreover, interaction among investigators in these three departments provides a strong interdisciplinary environment and a diversity of research opportunities. Students in this program will enter training through one of the three home departments and will receive background training either in the basic sciences that underlie research related to drug abuse or in the more clinical aspects of psychology related to the prevention and treatment of drug abuse. More focused training related to drug abuse will come from a variety of interdepartmental courses and seminars and extensive training in laboratory research. In subsequent years, research training will focus on the student's dissertation research. Students who complete this program will have mastered a variety of laboratory techniques useful in research in this area, obtained skills in planning and carrying out independent research as well as in the writing of specific reports and the presentation of research findings. Upon completion of their training students will be prepared to pursue a research career in basic or in clinical research on drug abuse in an academic setting, a research institute or a government-supported facility such as the Addiction Research Center.
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