Onarae Rice
Onarae was born and raised in “Sparkle-City”, better
known as Spartanburg, S.C. He graduated from Wofford College with a
B.S. in Psychology. While at Wofford, he interned for a semester at
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), in Long Island, NY. After
graduating, he accepted a job in the medical department at BNL and
later began to pursue a M.A. in Biopsychology from near by, Stony
Brook University.
While working at BNL, he
later completed a Ph.D. in Biopsychology from Stony Brook University
where he studied the brain’s endogenous cannabinoid system and its
potential role in mediating, or modulating, the rewarding properties of
various classes of abusive drugs. Onarae specifically used a CB1
Knockout mouse model (mice whose cannabinoid receptor has been
genetically “removed”) to help understand its role in addiction. A
portion of he and his colleague’s findings were published in
Brain
Research and
Behavioural Brain Research.
Onarae
conducted his Post-doctoral research at BNL but on a different project.
He worked on a NASA funded project to explore potential radiation
damage to the central nervous system (CNS) due to exposure to space
radiation. As NASA plans to send man to Mars, astronauts will be
subjected to various types of space radiation that could potentially be
detrimental to astronauts, in both the short and long-term, during their 3
year mission to and from Mars. Onarae used a rodent model, several
behavioral assays, and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to address
this problem.
At Furman, Onarae plans to
continue to employ a battery of behavioral assays to better understand
drug addiction and the role of various receptors in this process. He
plans to look more closely at the brain’s D3 receptor as a potential
target for treatment.
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Courses
| PSY 111 |
General Psychology |
PSY 320
|
Biopsychology
|
PSY 321
|
Pyschopharmacology
|
PSY 401
|
NS Capstone
|
| PSY 402 |
Behavioral Neuroscience |
| PSY 481 |
Brain Imaging |
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