I) Evaluation of academic objectives of the proposal
The objectives of this award were met, especially in regard to the mentoring focus
of the award. The students have been mentored and trained in an effective manner as
outlined in my Mentoring Plan (abbreviated below). This includes mentoring students in
research, writing, publishing, presenting at conferences, etc. Indeed, one measure of the
success of mentoring is demonstrated by the fact that most all the students graduating
from my lab during this time were accepted to the professional school of their choice (see
students listed below). Research, especially where the students are actually involved in all
aspects of it including data collection and analysis, as well as publishing can play a major
role in their acceptance to professional schools and set them apart from other candidates.
Regarding the research funded by this award we have attended several
international and regional conferences and published abstracts, with the centerpiece
publication of the project being published in October 2017, which was highlighted by
BYU and many national media outlets including Newsweek. We anticipate a few other
manuscripts related to be published soon. There were many student co-authors on these
manuscripts and abstracts. In addition, this research accomplished with the help of this
MEG led to preliminary data for a grant proposal leading to a successful NIH grant
award.
Student research presentations given include at the international Society for
Neuroscience meeting in Washington, DC and San Diego, CA; the Intermountain Society
for Neuroscience Symposium, and Utah Conference on Undergraduate Research. Data
was also used to submit three other NIH grant proposals.
Overall, we have made excellent progress with the time and money that we have
had to work with on this project, and in student mentoring. I am happy with the progress,
which in no way could have happened without this MEG award to provide the needed
supplies and student support over the last two years. I have provided a successful and
meaningful mentoring experience for the students involved, and at the same time
produced a lot of meaningful and compelling data related to reward and addiction.
II) Evaluation of the Mentoring environment
The following is my philosophy of mentoring: 1) Teach the fundamental elements of
hypothesis driven research. 2) Allow students to explore their own interests within the realm of
the laboratory umbrella. 3) Provide students with the time, personal supervision and overall
training they need to be successful individuals in the lab and in their futures, professionally and
academically. 4) Use laboratory meetings, journal clubs, attendance at professional meetings,
presenting posters as an essential way to train students to develop critical analyzing and thinking
skills as well as oral presentation skills. 5) Encourage student development through grant
writing, training experiences by allowing students to teach each other and collaborate through
group work. 6) Encourage positive interactions with myself and others in the lab. 7) Prepare
students with the professional skills required beyond the undergraduate degree in their schooling
and professions by accomplishing the aforementioned aims.
To help accomplish this general goal of mentoring as listed above I have several
evaluation endpoints for the students to accomplish and tools to do it. 1) Initially, I use an
undergraduate training program as a tool to teach students. All undergraduates go through a
training program before they can enter the lab to perform experiments. The training is a
collaborative effort between my lab and several others with the overall goal of providing
consistent, general laboratory training to all new students. This training includes safety, animal
handling, and a variety of laboratory skills. All of this is done under the supervision of advanced
undergraduate and graduate students as well as myself. 2) New students entering the lab also
receive 4-5 hours of background training together with me the first month they are in the lab.
This background training is designed to update their basic understanding of learning and memory
as well as reward/addiction science and to get them excited about the research by explaining
what the experiments are and what they will be doing in the lab and why. 3) All students are
expected to acquire good, publishable data. This is ensured by weekly lab meetings where the
students present their data and we review it together. I or my graduate students also watch
students in the lab doing the experiments at least weekly to ensure the experiments are performed
properly, that they are learning from the experience, and that they have a better mentored
experience than undergraduates who are left to work on their own with little or no guidance. 4)
They must learn to present, not just their data, but scientific information to others. Initially this is
practiced at laboratory meetings with their own data, then students present at journal clubs and
finally at conferences. Through this process they learn good oral communication skills, how to
present data to others as well as get to know and discuss science with researchers from around
the world. I had four graduate students and 8 undergraduates travel to different meetings to
present their data in the last two years (department funds also helped with the travel costs for this
many students). 5) I have my students apply for internal competitive research grants and my
graduate students for NIH pre-doctoral grants. Several undergraduates were awarded ORCA
grants in 2015 and 2016. This has given them the opportunity to research different project ideas,
search scientific databases and write their own grants with minor editing help from me. I attempt
to make this process as independent as possible, yet guided, providing an overview for how to
write a successful grant application. 6) I want the students to publish. While I discussed this
above I think it worth mentioning that I have many undergraduates who will be co-authors on
manuscripts.
The research experience students received in my lab was a key for most getting
acceptance into professional school. All my students who have finished have been accepted into
the graduate or professional school of their choice or are still applying (see section III below). In
conclusion, the students in my lab are getting excellent mentoring and training as illustrated by
the tangible products of research listed in section III & IV below. This experience is going to be
useful in their future and in getting excepted and succeeding in the professional school of their
choice, which I think is one of the main overall purposes of the MEG award while establishing
lasting and meaningful relationships with myself and others in the lab.
III) List of students who participated and academic deliverables
Profile of Undergraduate Students Previously Trained (2016–2017)
Collectively, nearly 100% of the students completing training in my lab in the last 2 years
were accepted to the professional school of their choice or are currently applying
All students were involved in one of two groups, with some doing electrophysiology and
others doing molecular biology. These students represent those who were mentored in my
lab and acquired the data used for the grant applications, abstracts, publications and
presentations listed above. Again, they also collectively were awarded several ORCA
grants. The main graduate student working on this project was also awarded a graduate
fellowship awards for their work. I have had some fantastic undergraduates and graduate
students who have done a great job with these projects.
Students also attended and presented at various conferences (2016-2017).
Awards given to my students for research and presentations:
Roxanne Miller Society for Neuroscience 2016 Selected ‘Hot Topic’ for Conf. Press release
IV) Description of results/findings
Again, we have published several papers with most relating to this work. In
addition, four grant proposals were submitted. We also have published many abstracts,
presented our data at regional and international meetings, and used this data for three
NIH grant proposals. This MEG provided money that went towards data that contributed
to attaining one NIH grant in 2016. It would have been impossible to acquire the data to
get this grant without the MEG funding.
Our goal was to investigate the role of GABA cells in the ventral tegmental area,
which is the reward center of the brain, and how drugs of abuse alter their synaptic
activity potentially leading to addiction. In order to understand and treat addiction it was
necessary to understand how the VTA is regulated at the synaptic level. We therefore
examined how excitatory inputs to VTA inhibitory cells are regulated and specifically
how synapses onto these cells can be modified, as these modifications, known as synaptic
plasticity, are what lead to the long-term addictive effects of drugs versus the immediate
reward. Importantly, we identified a novel form of synaptic plasticity onto VTA GABA
cells. This plasticity was occluded by chronic, but not acute THC (marijuana) and also
THC induced acute depression of excitatory inputs to VTA GABA cells. Collectively, the
importance of this data is that it suggests VTA GABA cells are involved in both reward
and addiction.
As the Journal of Neuroscience paper is the major paper, I am including a link to
it. I am also including a link to the BYU press we received for this paper.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29038246
https://news.byu.edu/news/byu-neuroscientists-identify-how-brain-cellsadolescent-
mice-are-modified-marijuana
Publications: (Students in my lab are underlined (undergraduate) and in bold (graduate))
L.N. Friend, R.C. Williamson, C.B. Merrill, S.T. Newton, M.T. Christensen and J.G.
Edwards. Hippocampal Stratum Oriens Interneurons Undergo CB1-Dependent Long-
Term Potentiation and Express Endocannabinoid Biosynthetic Enzymes. Submitted.
Roxanne M. Miller, David Marriott, Tyler Hammond, Jacob Trotter, Dane Lyman, Tim
Call, Ryan De Roque, Jacob Welch, Bethany Walker, Nathaniel Christensen, Deson
Haynie, Zoie Badura, Myriah Lewis, and Jeffrey G. Edwards. Running Exercise
Mitigates the Negative Consequences of Increased Corticosterone on Hippocampal Long-
Term Potentiation due to Stress. In Revision (Neurobiology of Learning and Memory).
Lindsey Friend, Jared Weed, Philip Sandoval, Teresa Nufer, Isaac Ostlund, Jeffrey
G. Edwards. 2017. CB1-dependent LTD in Ventral Tegmental Area GABA Neurons: a
Novel Target for Marijuana. Journal of Neuroscience. (Impact factor: ~7-8)
Steffensen, S.C., Shin, S.I., Nelson, A.C., Pistorius, S.S., Williams, S.B., Woodward,
T.J., Park, H.J., Friend, L., Gao, M., Gao, F., Taylor, D.H., Olive, M.F., Edwards, J.G.,
Sudweeks, S.N., Buhlman, L.M., McIntosh, J.M., and Wu, J. 2017. α6 subunit-containing
nicotinic receptors mediate low-dose ethanol effects on ventral tegmental area neurons
and ethanol reward. Addiction Biology (2017) doi: 10.1111/adb.12559: PMID: (Impact
Factor: ~5.1).
Katrina Hurst, Corinne Badgley, Tanner Ellsworth, Spencer Bell, Lindsey Friend,
Brad Prince, Jacob Welch, Zack Cowan, Brandon Anderson, Ryan Williamson, Chris
Lyon, Brian Poole, Michael Christensen, Jarrod Call, Michael McNeil and Jeffrey G.
Edwards. 2017. The Putative Cannabinoid Receptor GPR55 Modulates Hippocampal
Synaptic Plasticity. Hippocampus. DOI:10.1002/hipo.22747 PMID: 28653801. (Impact
Factor: 4.1).
Cordner D, Friend L, Mayo J, Ventura J, Badgley C, Wallmann A,Ventura JS, Chidsey
BA, Rogers A, Edwards JG, Bridgewater LC. 2017. The nuclear variant of BMP2,
nBMP2, affects hippocampal function in a mouse model. Scientific Reports. Apr
18;7:46464. doi: 10.1038/srep46464. PMID: 28418030 (Impact Factor: 5.58).
V) Description of how the budget was spent
The following is a list of approximately how much in each major category was
spent using the MEG funds awarded.
1) Supplies: chemicals, salts, drugs, glassware, oxygen, etc. ~$2,500
2) Physiological equipment (electrodes, pipette glass, etc.) ~$1,000
3) PCR supplies (RT-mix, tubes, primers, probes) ~$1,500
4) Animals (rats) ~$1,500
5) Student Salaries ~$11,000
6) Student Travel ~$2,500