Christina Gremel

Research Interests
Selected Publications

Research Interests

We want to understand how the brain does decision-making. This requires an understanding of both the behavioral and neural mechanisms involved. We take an integrative approach using mice, in which we can combine both simple and sophisticated quantitative behavioral measurements, with powerful molecular and genetic tools and monitoring techniques to delineate molecular mechanisms within specific cell-types in identified circuits that control decision-making processes.

Selected Publications

Renteria R, Baltz ET, & Gremel CM (2018) Chronic alcohol exposure and repeated withdrawal disrupts top-down control over basal ganglia action selection to produce habits. Nature Communications 9(211) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02615-9
Gremel CM, Chancey JH, Atwood BK, Luo GL, Neve R, Deisseorth K M, Lovinger DM, Costa RM (2016) Endocannabinoid modulation of orbitostriatal circuits gates habit formation. Neuron, 90, 1-13.
Gremel CM, Costa RM (2014) Secondary motor cortex is necessary for goal-directed actions. Frontiers Computational Neuroscience, 7(110): doi:10.3389/fncom.2013.00110
Gremel CM & Costa RM (2013) Orbitofrontal and striatal circuits dynamically encode the shift between goal-directed and habitualactions. Nature Communications, 4:2264 doi: 10.1038/ncomms3264.
Bock R, Shin JH, Dobi A, Markey E, Kramer PF, Funo R, Kaplan AR, Gremel CM, Christensen CH, Androver MF, Alvarez VA (2013)Synaptic potentiation at accumbal indirect-pathway neurons protects against cocaine addictive-like behaviors. Nature Neuroscience, 16(5): 632-638.
Gremel CM & Cunningham CL (2009) Involvement of amygdala dopamine and nucleus accumbens NMDA receptors in expression of ethanol seeking behavior in mice. Neuropsychopharm. 34: 1443-1453.
Gremel CM & Cunningham CL (2008) Roles of the nucleus accumbens and amygdala in the acquisition and expression of ethanol conditioned behavior in mice. J. Neurosci, 28(5): 1076-1084.

Updated Mar 2018