Erin Calipari
Associate Professor of Pharmacology | Vanderbilt University
NASHVILLE, TN, UNITED STATES
Expert in the neuroscience of mental illness and addiction, including gender differences.
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Biography
Calipari received her PhD in Neuroscience in 2013 in the laboratory of Sara Jones at Wake Forest University School of Medicine where she studied how self-administered drugs altered dopaminergic function to drive addictive behaviors. She then went on to complete her postdoctoral training with Eric Nestler at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she used circuit probing techniques to understand the temporally specific neural signals that underlie motivation and reward learning. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Pharmacology. Her independent work seeks to characterize and modulate the precise circuits in the brain that underlie both adaptive and maladaptive processes in reward, motivation, and associative learning.
Areas of Expertise (15)
Opioids
adaptive processes
self-administered drugs
Dopamine
Addiction and Recovery
Brain Behavior
Medicine and Drugs
Addiction
Neuroscience
Brain
Addictive Behavior
associative learning
Pharmacology
neural signals
maladaptive processes
Accomplishments (5)
Daniel X. Freedman Award
2019, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation
DP1 Avenir Award in Genetics and Epigenetics
2019, National Institute on Drug Abuse
NARSAD Young Investigator Award
2018, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation
Young Investigator Award
2017, College on Problems of Drug Use and Dependence
The Nancy Rutledge Zhaniser Award
2017, ASPET
Education (4)
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: Postdoctoral Training 2017
Advisor, Eric J Nestler, MD, Ph.D.
Wake Forest School of Medicine: Ph.D, Neuroscience 2013
Advisor, Sara R. Jones, Ph.D
University of Massachusetts, Amherst: B.S., Biology 2009
With honors
University of Massachusetts, Amherst: B.S., Psychology 2009
With honors
Affiliations (3)
- Frontiers in Psychiatry (Addictive Disorders) : Associate Editor
- American College of Neuropsychopharmacology : ACNP Associate Membership
- Neuropsychopharmacology : Editorial Board
Links (5)
Selected Media Appearances (11)
Online gambling could threaten public health, new report says
The National Desk tv
2024-10-25
Geoff Harris breaks down a new report on online gambling.
She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain
Quanta Magazine online
2023-12-07
Erin Calipari comes from a basketball family. Her father, John Calipari, has coached college and professional basketball since 1998, leading six teams to the NCAA Final Four, and her brother coaches men’s basketball at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she now works. But when she joined her college team as an undergraduate, she realized her strengths lay elsewhere. “I was fine. I wasn’t great,” she said. “It was pretty clear to me a couple years in that it was not a career path.”
The $200 billion playbook that kneecapped Big Tobacco is coming for Mark Zuckerberg and his social media offspring
Fortune online
2023-10-26
The social media lawsuits are far from perfect parallels to the tobacco litigation. First, social media users do not experience physical withdrawal in absence of the platforms, says Erin Calipari, the Associate Director of Vanderbilt University’s Center for Addiction Research. This will make it harder for the attorneys general to argue that social media is an addiction akin to drugs or tobacco ones. What’s more, Calipari notes that social media has some benefits, such as helping people foster connections with others and to communicate with people around the world. “The question is, how do you balance that with the potential risk?” she asks.
The FDA Plans to Lower Nicotine Levels in Cigarettes: Why That Matters
Prevention online
2022-06-22
Erin Calipari, Ph.D., a professor and addiction specialist at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, also has concerns that a reduction in nicotine levels will lead to tobacco users smoking more. “From the research that I do that looks at the factors that influence reinforcement behavior—the probability of doing something over and over again—when you cut the dose in half with drugs, individuals will do whatever they’re doing to get twice as much,” she says.
Drug Addiction and How It Affects the Brain
NewsChannel 5 tv
2022-04-26
On today's MorningLine, we talk addiction but from a different perspective - how the brain gets addicted. Dr. Erin Calipari, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt, joins us to explain how addiction work and the many ways it will affect our brain.
Can you be 'addicted' to Facebook, Instagram? Experts share how to tell if your social media use is problematic.
Yahoo! News
2021-10-05
While plenty of people were throwing around the terms "addicted" and "addiction" when talking about the social media platforms, it's tricky to actually call regular social media usage an "addiction," Erin Calipari, a professor and addiction specialist at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, tells Yahoo Life. Still, she says, some people definitely display "addictive behaviors" when it comes to using these platforms — and there's a reason for that.
This Combination of Medicines May Help Heavy-Drinking Smokers Quit
Verywell Health online
2021-07-01
“The findings point to a complex problem facing the addiction field: many people suffer from multiple addictions that are occurring at the same time and treating these co-occurring addictions may be different and more difficult than treating either addiction alone,” Erin Calipari, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, tells Verywell. “These findings are really important for clinicians that are treating individuals with substance use disorders.”
Pandemic mixed with the holidays is a cocktail for relapse, creating new addicts
Scripps tv
2020-12-04
Now, new research from Vanderbilt University shows not only are more people drinking alcohol and abusing other drugs during the pandemic, but that this increase could create new addicts as well. “You’re seeing an increase in drinking, in drug use in people at home. When the pandemic’s over, this isn’t going to go away," said Erin Calipari, Ph.D., with the Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research.
Clinton Foundation works to put naloxone in recovery homes as opioid epidemic is overshadowed by COVID-19 pandemic
USA Today online
2020-08-31
Stress from job losses can push some to drug use or knock recovering addicts off the path to sobriety, said Erin Calipari, principal investigator at the Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research. “When you start looking at data across the country, you see there’s a massive spike in overdoses,” Calipari said. “This is above and beyond what we saw with the opioid epidemic. It’s getting much, much worse.”
A Device That Heats Tobacco, But Doesn't Burn It, Can Now Be Sold in the U.S. Here's What to Know About IQOS
Time
2019-05-01
Erin Calipari, an assistant professor of pharmacology at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, says it’s important to cut down on harmful byproducts of smoking, but it’s also important to remember that nicotine is an addictive drug on its own, and is not without risks. “Nicotine is a stimulant. Stimulants have effects on the brain, and they have cardiovascular effects as well,” Calipari says. “We make a huge deal about the tar and the byproducts in cigarettes, but the drug addiction is incredibly important as well. Just because this minimizes other aversive outcomes doesn’t mean it’s safe.”
Meet the Calipari who holds court at Vanderbilt lab
Tennessean online
2019-03-15
Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari loves his older daughter, her homemade spaghetti and her pursuit of life-changing science. And he was really looking forward to seeing her when she traveled to the University of Kentucky campus last month to give a presentation about her addiction research.
Selected Event Appearances (5)
Activity-dependent changes in the dopamine transporter underlie addiction vulnerability in females.
ISN Satellite Brain in Flux Meeting Montreal, Québec, Canada
2019-08-01
Dopaminergic mechanisms underlying sex differences in valence-based decision making
Gordon Conference on Catecholamines Newry, ME
2019-08-01
Developing novel preclinical models to study addiction in females
College on Problems of Drug Dependence San Antonio, TX
2019-06-01
Sex differences in behavioral strategies: the role of the neural encoding of stimulus value
Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, MO
2019-05-01
The neural basis of sex differences in value-based decision making
Canadian Neuroscience Meeting (CAN) Montreal, Québec, Canada
2019-05-01
Selected Articles (5)
The role of the neuropeptide PEN receptor, GPR83, in the reward pathway: Relationship to sex-differences
NeuropharmacologyAmanda K Fakira, Emily G Peck, Yutong Liu, Lindsay M Lueptow, Nikita A Trimbake, Ming-Hu Han, Erin S Calipari, Lakshmi A Devi
2019 GPR83, the receptor for the neuropeptide PEN, exhibits high expression in the nucleus accumbens of the human and rodent brain, suggesting that it plays a role in modulating the mesolimbic reward pathway. However, the cell-type specific expression of GPR83, its functional impact in the reward pathway, and in drug reward-learning has not been fully explored. Using GPR83/eGFP mice, we show high GPR83 expression on cholinergic interneurons in the nucleus accumbens and moderate expression on ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons.
Cues play a critical role in estrous cycle-dependent enhancement of cocaine reinforcement
NeuropsychopharmacologyvolumeAmy R. Johnson, Kimberly C. Thibeault, Alberto J. Lopez, Emily G. Peck, L. Paul Sands, Christina M. Sanders, Munir Gunes Kutlu & Erin S. Calipari
2019 While preclinical work has aimed to outline the neural mechanisms of drug addiction, it has overwhelmingly focused on male subjects. There has been a push in recent years to incorporate females into existing addiction models; however, males and females often have different behavioral strategies, making it important to not only include females, but to develop models that assess the factors that comprise female drug addiction.
Sex Differences in Value-Based Decision Making Underlie Substance Use Disorders in Females
Alcohol and AlcoholismJennifer E Zachry, Amy R Johnson, Erin S Calipari
2019 For many psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and addiction, sex is a critical biological variable and women represent a particularly vulnerable population (Piccinelli and Wilkinson, 2000; Becker et al., 2017). While sex differences in the pervasiveness and prognosis of these disorders have long been known to exist, there are few instances where approaches to pharmacological treatment of these disorders differ between the sexes, which likely contributes to ineffective treatments in women.
Synaptic Microtubule-Associated Protein EB3 and SRC Phosphorylation Mediate Structural and Behavioral Adaptations During Withdrawal From Cocaine Self-Administration
Journal of NeuroscienceErin S. Calipari, Arthur Godino, Marine Salery, Diane M. Damez-Werno, Michael E. Cahill, Craig T. Werner, Amy M. Gancarz, Emily G. Peck, Zahra Jlayer, Jacqui Rabkin, Joseph A. Landry, Alexander C.W. Smith, Paola Defilippi, Paul J. Kenny, Yasmin L. Hurd, Rachael L. Neve, David M. Dietz and Eric J. Nestler
2019 Addictive behaviors, including relapse, are thought to depend in part on long-lasting drug-induced adaptations in dendritic spine signaling and morphology in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). While the influence of activity-dependent actin remodeling in these phenomena has been studied extensively, the role of microtubules and associated proteins remains poorly understood. We report that pharmacological inhibition of microtubule polymerization in the NAc inhibited locomotor sensitization to cocaine and contextual reward learning.
Shared Behavioral and Neurocircuitry Disruptions in Drug Addiction, Obesity, and Binge Eating Disorder: Focus on Group I mGluRs in the Mesolimbic Dopamine Pathway
ACS Chemical NeuroscienceSamantha E Yohn, Jordan Galbraith, Erin S Calipari, P Jeffrey Conn
2019 Accumulated data from clinical and preclinical studies suggest that, in drug addiction and states of overeating, such as obesity and binge eating disorder (BED), there is an imbalance in circuits that are critical for motivation, reward saliency, executive function, and self-control. Central to these pathologies and the extensive topic of this Review are the aberrations in dopamine (DA) and glutamate (Glu) within the mesolimbic pathway.
