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MARCH 26, 2023
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"Psychological
Effects of Marijuana" - Dr. Bertha Madras, |
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with in house
guests, Officer Joe and Cathy |
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FULL TWO HOURS |
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HOUR 1 |
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HOUR 2 |
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About
our Guest Bertha K. Madras, PhD
McLean Hospital Title
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Director, Laboratory of Addiction
Neurobiology
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Psychobiologist, Division of
Alcohol, Drugs, and Addiction, Jerry
and Phyllis Rappaport Center of
Excellence in Basic Neuroscience
Research
Harvard Medical School Title
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Professor of Psychobiology,
Department of Psychiatry
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Biography
Bertha K. Madras, PhD, is a professor of
psychobiology at Harvard Medical School,
based at McLean Hospital and cross
appointed at the Massachusetts General
Hospital. Her research focuses on
neurobiology, imaging, and medications
development (19 U.S. and 27
international patents) for
neuropsychiatric disorders. In public
policy, she was deputy director for
demand reduction in the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy,
a presidential appointment confirmed
unanimously by the U.S. Senate.
Dr. Madras recently served as a panelist
at the Vatican Pontifical Academy of
Sciences and in 2017, was appointed as
one of six members of the President’s
Commission on Combating Drug Addiction
and the Opioid Crisis. In service to the
public, she developed a museum exhibit
and a CD (licensed by Disney) with the
Museum of Science, Boston. She is
recipient of an NIH MERIT award, a NIDA
Public Service Award, and others.
Dr. Madras’ NIH Biosketch
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Research Focus: Dr. Madras’
laboratory focuses on brain signaling of
dopamine, a transmitter implicated in
schizophrenia, substance use disorders,
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD), Parkinson’s disease, and
endocrine disorders. Her laboratory
discovered a class of compounds to
detect the dopamine transporter.
Expressed exclusively on dopamine
neurons, this protein is a target of
therapeutic medications and of
psychostimulant drugs of abuse. The
transporter can also serve as a marker
of dopamine neurons.
Initially, she discovered a highly
selective radiolabeled probe for in
vitro detection of the transporter,
which became the most widely used agent
for this purpose. She subsequently began
a program of translational research by
converting the compound and analogs into
brain imaging agents for PET and SPECT
detection of Parkinson’s disease in
living brains. After her seminal
discoveries, numerous analogs of the
original compound were developed
internationally and used to investigate
neuropsychiatric disorders, develop
medications, and for other purposes.
Her translational research program
expanded from a diagnostic for
Parkinson’s disease to discovery of
higher levels of the transporter in
subjects with ADHD, for clarifying
genotype and phenotype relationships of
the transporter and other applications.
In seeking novel medications for cocaine
addiction, Dr. Madras engaged in a
collaboration that led to the design of
over 600 novel compounds as candidate
cocaine medications. In the process, she
discovered compounds that lacked an
amine nitrogen in their structures but
retained high-potency transporter
blockade. These findings abolished the
conventional dogma that monoamine
transporter drug interactions required
an amine nitrogen to be effective.
In seeking novel targets for medications
development to treat psychostimulant
addiction, her laboratory also
investigated trace amines. They showed
that TAAR1 activity was enhanced in the
presence of the dopamine transporter,
implicating a functional role of the
transporter in TAAR1 activity. Moreover,
she discovered that cocaine and
therapeutic dopamine transport
inhibitors also blocked the transport of
the trace amine phenethylamine,
conceivably implicating the trace amine
receptor1 and trace amines in
psychostimulant or therapeutic drug
response.
Her laboratory also investigated primate
models of genetically based human
neuropsychiatric disorders, with a focus
on a human mu opioid receptor single
nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), which
reportedly is associated with heroin
addiction. This research advanced a
rationale for developing naturalistic
primate models of human genetic
neuropsychiatric disorders.
During her service as deputy director
for demand reduction in the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy,
she developed sustainable initiatives to
reduce drug demand and improve treatment
quality, including new CPT® codes for
alcohol/drug screening and brief
interventions. She then assembled a team
of NIDA and SAMHSA investigators to
compile federal data and published the
results of a large multi-center federal
program for screening, brief
interventions, and referral to
treatment—Screening, Brief Intervention,
and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT)—for
illicit drug use and alcohol. The report
showed that 22.7% of 459,599 patients
screened positive for problematic
substance use at multiple healthcare
sites. Those offered a brief or more
intensive intervention reported
significantly reduced drug use and heavy
alcohol use six months later. The
manuscript has received over 600
citations since its publication in 2009.
Recently, Dr. Madras’ research has
focused on the effects of drugs on the
developing adolescent brain and on the
adult brain, to illuminate why early
drug initiators are more susceptible to
addiction, cognitive impairment, and
other adverse effects. Currently, her
laboratory is comparing the behavioral
and molecular consequences of
cannabinoid exposure in adolescent and
adult primates to discern whether the
psychoactive cannabinoid THC produces
different effects in the two age cohorts
and whether cannabidiol modulates these
effects. |
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