Balapal Awarded 5-Year Grant from National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
Dr. Basavaraj Balapal is the recipient of a five-year R01 for the grant titled, “CB1-mediated signaling in developmental ethanol effects.” He will be collaborating with Dr. Mariko Saito of NKI’s Neurochemistry Department and Dr. Christopher Goulbourne, Director of the Electron Microscopy (EM) Facility at the CDR. Dr. Balapal notes that this proposal seeks to elucidate the intricate mechanisms responsible for specific synaptic dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, collectively contributing to behavioral deficits. These deficits are believed to arise from CB1 activity and histone methylation-mediated transcriptional dysregulation due to postnatal alcohol exposure, subsequently giving rise to irregularities in synaptic gene expression.