Award
National Institute on Drug Abuse 1F32DA065393-01
Neural and Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Perseverance and Their Disruption After Juvenile Social Play Deprivation
Recipient
University of Maryland, College Park
Award Amount
$76,780.00
Ceiling
$76,780.00
Awarded
February 20, 2026
Identifier
1F32DA065393-01
Research project studying the impact of juvenile social play deprivation on adult cognition and behavior in rats, focusing on neural mechanisms of perseverance and resilience, funded by NIDA.
Description
This project explores how juvenile playfulness contributes to adult cognition by characterizing a novel rat operant task to investigate neural signaling related to effort, perseverance, and resilience. It involves depriving juvenile rats of social peer play and assessing their adult cognitive performance, reward-guided decision-making, and drug-seeking behavior, aiming to establish juvenile social play as key to neurocognitive development with therapeutic potential.