• PhD, Oregon Health & Science University

The overall research goal of my laboratory is to determine the precise role of the brain’s reward circuitry in appetitive learning and drug addiction, and how motivated behavior is controlled by reward‐associated stimuli (“cues”). To this end, my laboratory specializes in behavioral and in vivo neurophysiological techniques to study neural connections within reward‐related brain areas. Further, I am interested in how individual differences in the ability of cues to control motivated behavior are reflected by neural activity within this circuitry (specifically the ventral basal ganglia), and how genetic and environmental factors interact to influence the magnitude of these differences.

• Wakabayashi KT, Feja M, Leigh MPK, Baindur AN, Suarez M, Meyer PJ, Bass CE (2021) Chemogenetic activation of mesoaccumbal Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid projections selectively tunes responses to predictive cues when reward value is unexpectedly decreased. Biological Psychiatry 89(4): 366-375.
• Loney GC, King CP, Meyer PJ (2021) Systemic nicotine enhances opioid self-administration and modulates the formation of opioid-associated memories partly through actions within the insular cortex. Scientific Reports 11: 3321.
• King CP, Tripi JA, Hughson AR, Horvath AP, Lamparelli AC, Holl KL, Chitre AS, Polesskaya O, Richards JB, Solberg Woods LC, Palmer AA, Robinson TE, Flagel SB, Meyer PJ (2021) Sensitivity to food and cocaine cues are independent traits in a large sample of heterogeneous stock rats. Scientific Reports. 11, 2223.
• Chitre AS, Polesskaya O, Holl K, Gao J, Cheng R, Bimschleger H, Garcia Martinez A, George T, Gileta AF, Han W, Horvath A, Hughson A, Ishiwari K, King CP, Lamparelli A, Versaggi CL, Martin C, St Pierre CL, Tripi JA, Wang T, Chen H, Flagel SB, Meyer PJ, Richards J, Robinson TE, Palmer AA, Solberg Woods LC. (2020) Genome-Wide Association Study in 3,173 Outbred Rats Identifies Multiple Loci for Body Weight, Adiposity, and Fasting Glucose. Obesity 2020 Oct; 28(10):1964-1973.
• Peterson VL, Richards JB, Meyer PJ, Cabrera-Rubio R, Tripi JA, King CP, Polesskaya O, Baud A, Chitre A, Bastiaanssen TFS, Solberg Woods L, Crispie F, Dinan TG, Cotter PD, Palmer AA, Cryan JF (2020). Sex-dependent Associations between Addiction-related Behaviors and the Microbiome. EBioMedicine 55:102769.
• Loney GC, Angelyn H, Meyer PJ (2019) Nicotine produces a high-approach, low-avoidance phenotype in response to alcohol-associated cues in male rats. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. Jun; 43:1284-1295.
• Loney GC, Meyer PJ (2019) Nicotine reduces the sensitivity to the interoceptive properties of commonly abused drugs as assessed with taste conditioning paradigms. Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Jan 1;194:341-350.
• Loney GC, Pautassi RM, Kapadia D, & Meyer PJ (2018) Nicotine affects ethanol-conditioned taste, but not place, aversion in a simultaneous conditioning procedure. Alcohol. Sep;71:47-55.
• Loney GC, Meyer PJ (2018) Brief exposures to the taste of ethanol and quinine promote subsequent acceptance of ethanol in a paradigm that minimizes post-ingestive consequences. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. Mar;42(3):589-602.
• Pasquariello KP, Han M, Unal C, Meyer PJ (2018) Adrenergic manipulation inhibits Pavlovian conditioned Approach of incentive salience attribution to food cues. Behavioral Brain Research 339:278-285.
• King CP, Militello L, Hart A, St Pierre CL, Leung E, Catlin J, Roberson NP, Versaggi CL, Palmer AA, Richards JB, Meyer PJ (2017) “Cdh13 and AdipoQ gene knockout alters instrumental and Pavlovian drug conditioning” Genes, Brain, & Behavior. 16 (7): 686-698.
• Tripi JA, Dent MD, Meyer PJ (2017) “Individual differences in food-cue responsivity are associated with cocaine-induced ultrasonic vocalizations” Psychopharmacology 234(3): 437-446.
• Versaggi CL, King CP, & Meyer PJ (2016) “The tendency to sign-track predicts cue-induced reinstatement during nicotine self-administration, and is enhanced by nicotine but not ethanol” Psychopharmacology 233(15-16):2985-97.
• King CP, Palmer AA, Solberg Woods LC, Richards JB, & Meyer PJ (2016) Premature responding is associated with approach to a food cue in male and female heterogeneous stock rats. Psychopharmacology 233(13):2593-2605