Luca Colnaghi

Columbia University

The role of smoking in cocaine addiction

2012-2013

Alexander Bodini Research Fellow in Developmental and Adolescent Psychiatry

After receiving his B.Sc. in Functional Genomics and Bioinformatics from the University of Milan, Luca Colnaghi moved to New York City in 2007, where in 2011 he received a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the NYU Langone Medical Center. He is now continuing his studies in the laboratory of Eric Kandel at Columbia University. He currently works on the molecular mechanisms of drug addiction and metaplasticity in the brain. Metaplasticity ascertains that past experiences may change synaptic architecture and neural circuitry, so that when another event comes along, it is experienced differently than if the past experience did not occur. He is studying how pre-exposure to nicotine and other drugs affect the systemic response to cocaine.