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Nicole Lewellyn Schramm-Sapyta

Associate Professor of the Practice in the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
308 Research Dr Room M055, Box 91003, Durham, NC 27708
308 Research Dr Room M055, Box 91003, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Publications


Editorial: New insights on bringing social context into addiction neuroscience.

Journal Article Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · January 2024 Full text Cite

Primary care need and engagement by people with criminal legal involvement: Descriptive and associational analysis using retrospective data on the entire population ever detained in one southeastern U.S. county jail 2014-2020.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2024 More than 7 million people are released each year from U.S. jails or prisons, many with chronic diseases that would benefit from primary care in their returning communities. The objective of this study was to provide an in-depth, payer-agnostic description ... Full text Link to item Cite

Reliance on Community Emergency Departments by People Ever Detained in Jail: Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study.

Journal Article Journal of correctional health care : the official journal of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care · August 2023 Millions are confined in U.S. jails each year, often with unmet health and social needs. After release, many will visit the emergency department (ED). To illuminate their patterns of ED use, this study linked records from all individuals detained at a Sout ... Full text Cite

Relationships between substance use disorders, 'severe mental illness' and re-arrest in a county detention facility: A 4-year follow-up cohort study.

Journal Article Crim Behav Ment Health · June 2023 BACKGROUND: A growing body of literature demonstrates strong association between poor mental health and criminal recidivism, but research from county jails is limited. AIMS: Our aim was to examine the relationship between re-arrest and severe mental illnes ... Full text Link to item Cite

Increasing Naloxone Prescribing in the Emergency Department Through Education and Electronic Medical Record Work-Aids.

Journal Article Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · June 2021 BACKGROUND: Emergency department (ED) visits for opioid overdose continue to rise. Evidence-based harm reduction strategies for opioid use disorder (OUD), such as providing home naloxone, can save lives, but ED implementation remains challenging. METHODS: ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Emergency Department as an Opportunity for Naloxone Distribution.

Journal Article The western journal of emergency medicine · November 2018 IntroductionSubstance use disorders, including opioid use disorders, are a major public health concern in the United States. Between 2005 and 2014, the rate of opioid-related emergency department (ED) visits nearly doubled, from 89.1 per 100,000 p ... Full text Open Access Cite

Utilizing Bloom's taxonomy to design a substance use disorders course for health professions students.

Journal Article Subst Abus · 2018 BACKGROUND: Substance use disorders (SUDs) are a public health problem affecting millions of Americans. Despite their prevalence, there are few health care resources allocated for SUDs treatment. Relatively few health care professionals are exposed to SUDs ... Full text Link to item Cite

An Interprofessional Course on Substance Use Disorders for Health Professions Students.

Journal Article Acad Med · December 2017 PROBLEM: Substance use disorders (SUDs) affect millions of Americans. Nevertheless, there is insufficient health care resource allocation for these patients. One reason may be the lack of education and training about SUDs in health professions programs. AP ... Full text Link to item Cite

Behavioral Inefficiency on a Risky Decision-Making Task in Adulthood after Adolescent Intermittent Ethanol Exposure in Rats.

Journal Article Sci Rep · July 5, 2017 Adolescence is a period of development in neural circuits that are critical for adult functioning. There is a relationship between alcohol exposure and risky decision-making, though the enduring effects of adolescent ethanol exposure on risky decision-maki ... Full text Link to item Cite

Systems-level view of cocaine addiction: the interconnection of the immune and nervous systems.

Journal Article Experimental biology and medicine (Maywood, N.J.) · November 2014 The human body is a complex assembly of physiological systems designed to manage the multidirectional transport of both information and nutrients. An intricate interplay between the nervous, circulatory, and secretory systems is therefore necessary to sust ... Full text Cite

Phenotypic mapping of metabolic profiles using self-organizing maps of high-dimensional mass spectrometry data.

Journal Article Analytical chemistry · July 2014 A metabolic system is composed of inherently interconnected metabolic precursors, intermediates, and products. The analysis of untargeted metabolomics data has conventionally been performed through the use of comparative statistics or multivariate statisti ... Full text Cite

Effect of sex on ethanol consumption and conditioned taste aversion in adolescent and adult rats.

Journal Article Psychopharmacology (Berl) · April 2014 RATIONALE: Vulnerability to alcoholism is determined by many factors, including the balance of pleasurable vs. aversive alcohol-induced sensations: pleasurable sensations increase intake, while aversive sensations decrease it. Female sex and adolescent age ... Full text Link to item Cite

Race differences in the relation of vitamins A, C, E, and β-carotene to metabolic and inflammatory biomarkers.

Journal Article Nutr Res · January 2014 Using archival data, we conducted a secondary analysis to examine race differences in the relation of serum vitamins A, C, E and β-carotene to insulin resistance (IR), fasting insulin and glucose, high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and leukocyte ... Full text Link to item Cite

Use of the light/dark test for anxiety in adult and adolescent male rats.

Journal Article Behav Brain Res · November 1, 2013 The light/dark (LD) test is a commonly used rodent test of unconditioned anxiety-like behavior that is based on an approach/avoidance conflict between the drive to explore novel areas and an aversion to brightly lit, open spaces. We used the LD test to inv ... Full text Link to item Cite

Depression inhibits the anti-inflammatory effects of leisure time physical activity and light to moderate alcohol consumption.

Journal Article Brain Behav Immun · August 2013 Light to moderate alcohol consumption and leisure time physical activity (LTPA) are independently associated with lower levels of high sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP), a predictor of cardiometabolic risk. In contrast, depression, ranging from low mood ... Full text Link to item Cite

Characterization of a semi-rapid method for assessing delay discounting in rodents.

Journal Article Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior · April 2012 Delay discounting is a key component of many psychiatric disorders, including drug addiction, compulsive gambling, ADHD, and obesity. However, its underlying mechanisms are not yet fully characterized. One impediment to full characterization of such mechan ... Full text Cite

Individual differences in cocaine conditioned taste aversion are developmentally stable and independent of locomotor effects of cocaine.

Journal Article Dev Cogn Neurosci · October 2011 Drugs of abuse induce complex motivational states in their users which have been shown to vary developmentally. In addition to developmental variation, interindividual variation in the rewarding and aversive effects of drugs of abuse is an important consid ... Full text Link to item Cite

Role of individual and developmental differences in voluntary cocaine intake in rats.

Journal Article Psychopharmacology (Berl) · June 2011 RATIONALE: Early-onset drug taking is associated with increased likelihood of addiction, but it is unclear whether early onset is causal in development of addiction. Many other factors are associated with increased risk of addiction and also promote early ... Full text Link to item Cite

Aversive effects of ethanol in adolescent versus adult rats: potential causes and implication for future drinking.

Journal Article Alcohol Clin Exp Res · December 2010 BACKGROUND: Many people experiment with alcohol and other drugs of abuse during their teenage years. Epidemiological evidence suggests that younger initiates into drug taking are more likely to develop problematic drug seeking behavior, including binge and ... Full text Link to item Cite

Are adolescents more vulnerable to drug addiction than adults? Evidence from animal models.

Journal Article Psychopharmacology (Berl) · September 2009 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE: Epidemiological evidence suggests that people who begin experimenting with drugs of abuse during early adolescence are more likely to develop substance use disorders (SUDs), but this correlation does not guarantee causation. Anima ... Full text Link to item Cite

Novelty-induced locomotion is positively associated with cocaine ingestion in adolescent rats; anxiety is correlated in adults.

Journal Article Pharmacol Biochem Behav · January 2009 The present studies assessed the roles of sex, age, novelty-seeking and plus-maze behavior on cocaine drinking in rats. Cocaine/saccharin solution was available in three daily, 5-hour sessions then a saccharin-only solution was also available in following ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early ethanol consumption predicts relapse-like behavior in adolescent male rats.

Journal Article Alcohol Clin Exp Res · May 2008 BACKGROUND: Alcohol abuse disorders emerge over time with repeated consumption of ethanol, but not all ethanol drinkers develop these disorders. There are pre-existing characteristics that indicate which drinkers are most likely to abuse alcohol. Adolescen ... Full text Link to item Cite

Differential anxiogenic, aversive, and locomotor effects of THC in adolescent and adult rats.

Journal Article Psychopharmacology (Berl) · May 2007 RATIONALE: Unpleasant side effects of drugs of abuse often limit their repeated use; however, such effects may be attenuated in adolescents compared to adults. OBJECTIVES: We investigated whether the anxiogenic, aversive, or locomotor effects of delta-9-te ... Full text Link to item Cite

Cocaine self-administration reduces excitatory responses in the mouse nucleus accumbens shell.

Journal Article Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · July 2006 Drugs of abuse affect behavior by altering neuronal communication within the brain. Previous research examining the effects of intraperitoneally administered cocaine has revealed that cocaine alters excitatory glutamatergic signaling, both directly through ... Full text Cite

Adolescent rats are protected from the conditioned aversive properties of cocaine and lithium chloride.

Journal Article Pharmacol Biochem Behav · June 2006 In humans, most drug use is initiated during adolescence and adolescent users are more likely to become drug-dependent than adult users. Repeated, high levels of use are required for the transition from use to addiction. Individual levels of drug use are t ... Full text Link to item Cite

Extracellular-signal regulated kinase 1-dependent metabotropic glutamate receptor 5-induced long-term depression in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis is disrupted by cocaine administration.

Journal Article The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · March 2006 The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) is a key component of the CNS stress and reward circuit. Synaptic plasticity in this region could in part underlie the persistent behavioral alterations in generalized anxiety and addiction. Group I metabotrop ... Full text Cite

Effects of periadolescent versus adult cocaine exposure on cocaine conditioned place preference and motor sensitization in mice.

Journal Article Psychopharmacology · April 2004 RationaleAge of initial exposure to addictive substances is inversely proportional to risk of developing drug dependence. There is debate, however, as to whether intake at a young age causes dependency or whether young people who experiment with a ... Full text Cite

Synaptic plasticity in drug reward circuitry.

Journal Article Current molecular medicine · November 2002 Drug addiction is a major public health issue worldwide. The persistence of drug craving coupled with the known recruitment of learning and memory centers in the brain has led investigators to hypothesize that the alterations in glutamatergic synaptic effi ... Full text Cite

LTP in the mouse nucleus accumbens is developmentally regulated.

Journal Article Synapse (New York, N.Y.) · September 2002 Glutamatergic transmission in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) has been shown to be important for behavioral adaptations in response to drugs of abuse. NMDA-receptor dependent long-term potentiation (LTP) of glutamatergic synaptic transmission has been hypothes ... Full text Cite

Plasticity and behavior: new genetic techniques to address multiple forms and functions.

Journal Article Physiology & behavior · August 2001 As the best-studied form of vertebrate synaptic plasticity, NMDA-receptor dependent long-term potentiation (NMDAR-LTP) has long been considered a leading candidate for a cellular locus for some aspects of learning and memory. However, assigning a specific ... Full text Cite

The alpha(2a)-adrenergic receptor plays a protective role in mouse behavioral models of depression and anxiety.

Journal Article The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · July 2001 The noradrenergic system is involved in the regulation of many physiological and psychological processes, including the modulation of mood. The alpha(2)-adrenergic receptors (alpha(2)-ARs) modulate norepinephrine release, as well as the release of serotoni ... Full text Cite

The α2A-adrenergic receptor plays a protective role in mouse behavioral models of depression and anxiety

Journal Article Journal of Neuroscience · 2001 The noradrenergic system is involved in the regulation of many physiological and psychological processes, including the modulation of mood. The α2-adrenergic receptors (α2-ARs) modulate norepinephrine release, as well as the release of serotonin and other ... Cite

Morphological and biochemical strategies for monitoring trafficking of epitope-tagged G protein-coupled receptors in agonist-naive and agonist-occupied states

Journal Article Methods in Enzymology · 2001 Epitope tagged α2-AR subtypes have been used to address a variety of cell biological questions, and the strategies used are readily applicable to all GPCR as well as other cell surface proteins. We have provided detailed protocols for successful utilizatio ... Full text Cite

Stimulation of mitogen-activated protein kinase by G protein-coupled alpha(2)-adrenergic receptors does not require agonist-elicited endocytosis.

Journal Article The Journal of biological chemistry · August 1999 Agonist-elicited receptor sequestration is strikingly different for the alpha(2A)- versus alpha(2B)-adrenergic receptor (alpha(2)-AR) subtypes; the alpha(2B)-AR undergoes rapid and extensive disappearance from the HEK 293 cell surface, whereas the alpha(2A ... Full text Cite