Dr. Gondré-Lewis is Director of the Developmental Neuropsychopharmacology Laboratory at the Howard University College of Medicine. Her research team has a dual focus to investigate environmental factors that influence brain development and maturation, and also to investigate mechanisms of reward associated with escalation of drug use, especially excessive alcohol consumption and opioid addiction. These research foci converge in that experiences of early life adversity, which disrupt neural circuits in distinct anatomical sites, also lead to neuropsychiatric disorders with altered cognition, mood/affect, and reward/addiction. The laboratory tests various pharmacological, genetic, and biochemical interventions to restore control behaviors and reduce the manifestation of those associated with depression, anhedonia, anxiety, addiction, impulsivity, fear learning. Human correlates are Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Schizophrenia, Substance Use Disorders (SUD).
Dr. Gondré-Lewis has served as an editorial board member and reviewer for many journals, on several grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and shares her work internationally. She is an author of numerous research articles, reflective of her broad background in investigating cellular trafficking, developmental brain disorders and mechanisms of drugs of abuse. She now focuses on both genetic and epigenetic (environmental experience) modulators of brain development and maturation. The laboratory has received funding from NIAAA, NIMHD, NINDS, NIGMS, NSF, as well as internal and corporate sources.
Main Research Topics are aimed at:
1) Uncovering immediate and long-term behavioral, neuroanatomical and molecular disruptions caused by the experience of early life adversity and developmental drug exposure (nicotine) during prenatal life, infancy and adolescence.
2) Investigating molecular bases of alcohol addiction and co-morbid neuropsychiatric disease as mediated by neuroinflammation, CRF, GABA, and other molecular circuits.
3) Testing small molecules and natural products that target the reward pathway to improve cognition and affect in rodent models of stress and addiction.
4) Targeting the genetic bases for opioid use disorder to develop effective treatments to restore dopamine homeostasis in humans—consideration for psychosocial determinants of brain health.