Biography
Dr. Kawa received a B.S. degree in Biology from the University of Maryland, College Park. After graduating, he worked as a postbac research tech at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the labs of Drs. Donna Calu and Yavin Shaham. Dr. Kawa received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor while working in Dr. Terry Robinson's lab in the Biopsychology Area. Following his PhD work, he worked in Dr. Marina Wolf's lab as a postdoc at Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon.
Personal Statement
I have always been interested in neuroscience and particularly what motivates people to do the things that they do. This led me to study the neuroscience of motivation for food and then eventually motivation for drugs of abuse. Drugs of abuse are especially interesting because of their potent ability to change the systems in the brain that mediate motivation.
My graduate work was largely focused on improving the pre-clinical models that we use to study addiction. This led to a series of papers characterizing the intermittent access self-administration procedure. What we found particularly interesting when using this procedure was that even though individuals consumed far less drug versus other self-administration procedures, they were much more motivated for drug than individuals trained on other procedures. This made clear to us that the temporal pattern by which drugs are consumed is more important than the total amount of the drug taken. I went on to show that dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens is dependent on the temporal pattern of drug consumption.
During my postdoc I used the 'incubation of craving' model to study neuroplasticity in the nucleus accumbens. Incubation of craving describes a progressive increase in cue-induced drug-seeking that develops during abstinence from drug use. This means that individuals tested weeks or months after their last drug experience are often more motivated to work for the drug than individuals that are tested only days after their last drug use. Using this model, I characterized a unique form of long-term depression (LTD) that has potential treatment implications for reversing the changes that accumulate in the brain during incubation. I also led a study using RNA-seq to characterize how translation changes from early- to late-abstinence timepoints.
Areas of Specialty
Motivated Behavior
Addiction
Drugs of abuse, dopamine, and the striatum
Achievements & Awards
NIH/NIDA K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award
NIH/NIDA F32 Individual Postdoctoral NRSA
Clyde H. Coombs Mathematical Psychology Scholarship, University of Michigan
Key Publications
Journal Article
Kawa, Alexander, Hashimoto, J, G Beutler, M, M Guizzetti, M, Wolf, M, E 2025 Changes in nucleus accumbens core translatome accompanying incubation of cocaine craving. Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, vol. 50, Issue 8, 1305-1316
Journal Article
Kawa, Alexander, Hwang, E, K Funke, J, R Zhou, H, Costa-Mattioli, M, Wolf, M, E 2022 Positive Allosteric Modulation of mGlu(1) Reverses Cocaine-Induced Behavioral and Synaptic Plasticity Through the Integrated Stress Response and Oligophrenin-1. Biological psychiatry, vol. 92, Issue 11, 871-879
Journal Article
Kawa, Alexander, Bentzley, B, S Robinson, T, E 2016 Less is more: prolonged intermittent access cocaine self-administration produces incentive-sensitization and addiction-like behavior. Psychopharmacology, vol. 233, Issue 19-20, 3587-602
Journal Article
Kawa, Alexander, Valenta, A, C Kennedy, R, T Robinson, T, E 2019 Incentive and dopamine sensitization produced by intermittent but not long access cocaine self-administration. The European journal of neuroscience, vol. 50, Issue 4, 2663-2682
Journal Article
Kawa, Alexander, Robinson, T, E 2019 Sex differences in incentive-sensitization produced by intermittent access cocaine self-administration. Psychopharmacology, vol. 236, Issue 2, 625-639
Gender
Male
Languages
- English