Bettina Drisaldi

Columbia University

Consequences of prenatal nicotine exposure on nicotine and cocaine addiction during adolescence

2013-2014: Fall and Spring

Alexander Bodini Research Fellow in Developmental and Adolescent Psychiatry

Bettina Drisaldi is an Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University. She studied Biological Sciences at the University of Pavia, Italy, where she also obtained her PhD in Genetics. In 1998 she was awarded a Fullbright fellowship to study Neurobiology in the USA. After spending three years at Washington University in St. Louis, MO, where she worked in the laboratory of David A. Harris on the molecular characteristics of prion proteins, in 2001 she moved to University of Toronto, to work as a postdoctorsal fellow in the laboratory of David Westaway at the Centre for Research in Neurodenerative Diseases. 

After accepting a position in the Laboratory of Eric Kandel she is now studying the consequences of prenatal nicotine exposure on nicotine and cocaine addiction during adolescence and adult life. 

Moreover, since addiction is considered to arise from a maladaptive persistent associative memory of a highly pleasurable experience, she is also working on the analysis of the molecular putative role in cocaine addiction of a protein associated to the maintenance and consolidation of hippocampal long-term memories.