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Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
Division of Psychopharmacology
Research Service, VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System
UCD
Department of Psychiatry
4200 E. 9th Ave., C249-32
Denver, CO 80262
Email: Laura.Martin@uchsc.edu
Office: 303-315-1554
Fax: 303-315-5347
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Research Interests
I am interested in understanding more about the underlying biology of the cholinergic system in schizophrenia. As such, I have been involved in projects examining the effects of nicotine on mismatch negativity indices as well as the effects of nicotine on cortical activation patterns during a smooth pursuit eye movement task in persons with schizophrenia. However, nicotine has several drawbacks, in that it is addictive, tobacco has numerous adverse health effects, and nicotine’s long term efficacy is limited by tachyphylaxis. With the development of alpha-7 nicotinic agonists, I have become interested in learning more about the potential of these compounds as a therapeutic class in schizophrenia. I hope to identify experimental paradigms that can be used to assess the biological effects of nicotinic agonist administration in schizophrenia. I also hope to further explore the changes in the nicotinic cholinergic system following tobacco abstinence and how this may affect cognition and therapeutic response in schizophrenia. Current projects include an investigation of selective attention in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder using the Stroop task, an investigation of smooth pursuit eye movements in bipolar disorder and an investigation of the effects of nicotine on finger tapping rates in persons with schizophrenia.
Curriculum Vitae
Publications on Brain Imaging Center Website
Publications via PubMed
Non-fMRI Publications
More about Schizophrenia Research
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