Planarians and the pharmacology of addiction: an in vivo model for K-12 education

涡虫和成瘾药理学：K-12 教育的体内模型

• 批准号: 9069771
• 负责人: SCOTT M. RAWLS
• 金额: $ 24.51万
• 依托单位: TEMPLE UNIV OF THE COMMONWEALTH
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-07-15 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9069771
• 关键词: ATOD; Address; Adolescent; Age; Alcohols; Animal Model; Animals; Attitude; Awareness; Basic Science; Behavior; Behavioral; Biological; Biological Neural Networks; Biomedical Research; Brain; Brain Diseases; CD-ROM; Caffeine; Cannabinoids; Caring; Conscious; Dependence; Development; Disease; Dopamine; Drug Addiction; Drug abuse; Drug usage; Drug user; Economics; Educational process of instructing; Educational workshop; Ensure; Ethics; Experimental Designs; Exposure to; Faculty; Future Teacher; Glutamates; Goals; Grant; Health; High School Student; Human; Illicit Drugs; Individual; K-12 Education; Knowledge; Laboratories; Language Arts; Lead; Learning; Legal; Life; Link; Mammals; Mathematics; Medical; Mentors; Methodology; Modeling; Mus; Nature; Neurotransmitters; Nicotine; North Carolina; Opioid; Organism; Pennsylvania; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Pharmacology; Physical Dependence; Planarians; Platyhelminths; Population; Process; Program Sustainability; Publications; Rattus; Recording of previous events; Reproducibility; Research; Rewards; Risk; Schools; Science; Scientist; Students; Substance abuse problem; Sucrose; System; United States; United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Universities; Withdrawal; Work; Writing; addiction; base; career; conditioning; design; drinking; drug abuse education; drug of abuse; drug reward; elementary school; hazard; high school; in vivo; in vivo Model; interest; junior high school; laboratory manuals; member; neurochemistry; novel; programs; research study; response; science education; skills training; sugar; teacher; web site

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Approximately 8% of the United States population ages 12 and older are illicit drug users (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2009). Despite the economic, criminal, and medical consequences associated with drug abuse, most people still do not understand that drug addiction is a brain disease. One strategy to better enhance public awareness about addiction is to develop and implement an educational program to teach the science of drug addiction at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Students exposed to such a program could be as knowledgeable about the science and consequences of drug addiction as they are about mathematics, economics, language arts, and history. Current K-12 drug abuse programs are primarily directed toward providing students with information about addiction and abused drugs (ATOD-TV, If You Drink) or dissuading students from using drugs (DARE, Life Skills Training). A long-standing gap in drug abuse education that is not addressed by existing programs is the ability for students to conduct and design experiments in live animals. In vivo effects of addictive substances are typically studied in mammals (humans, mice, rats), but extensive use of mammals in K-12 classrooms is impractical due to economic, practical, legal, and ethical concerns. What is needed to overcome this barrier is a non-mammalian species - one that is scientifically relevant but cheaper and more convenient than mammals. We hypothesize that planarians, an aquatic flatworm, can be used to design a hands-on, inquiry-based educational program for elementary, middle, and high school students. The program will contain lessons linked to National Science Education Standards (NSES) and state standards that will enable students to design and conduct experiments to study the pharmacology of abused drugs (caffeine, nicotine, alcohol) and learn how these pharmacological effects are used to predict and model aspects of human addiction. Planarians are ideal organisms because they have what some consider the earliest 'brain' and possess mammalian-like neurotransmitter systems that are targeted by addictive substances. Dr. Rawls' extensive publication record studying the pharmacological effects of drugs of abuse in planarians indicates that these organisms are ideal for students to study conditions that perpetuate the addictive process, including physical dependence, withdrawal, sensitization, tolerance, and environmental place conditioning. The proposed partnerships between scientists, educators, and students are expected to result in the development, implementation, and dissemination of a reproducible drug abuse program for grade 4-12 students that is sustainable beyond the duration of the initial grant period. We expect this novel program to achieve the multiple goals of increasing student knowledge about the science of drug addiction, increasing student awareness about the care and use of animals in basic science research, shifting student attitudes about drug abuse, and enhancing student interest in pursuing biomedical research careers.

描述（由申请人提供）：大约8％的12岁及以上的美国人口是非法吸毒者（药物滥用和精神卫生服务管理局，2009年）。尽管经济，犯罪和医疗后果与滥用药物有关，但大多数人仍然不知道吸毒是一种脑部疾病。更好地提高公众对成瘾意识的一种策略是制定和实施一项教育计划，以教授小学，中学和高中级别的药物成瘾科学。暴露于这样的计划的学生可能对吸毒的科学和后果知识渊博，就像关于数学，经济学，语言艺术和历史的知识。当前的K-12药物滥用计划主要是针对学生提供有关成瘾和滥用药物的信息（如果您喝酒的话）或劝阻学生不使用药物（敢于，敢于，生活技能培训）。现有计划未解决药物滥用教育的长期差距是学生在活动物中进行和设计实验的能力。通常在哺乳动物（人类，小鼠，大鼠）中研究成瘾性物质的体内作用，但是由于经济，实用，法律和道德问题，在K-12教室中广泛使用哺乳动物是不切实际的。克服这一障碍所需的是一种非哺乳动物物种，一种与哺乳动物相关，但比哺乳动物更便宜，更方便。我们假设Planarians是一种水生扁虫，可用于设计一个基于询问的基于询问的教育计划，为小学，中学和高中生设计。该计划将包含与国家科学教育标准（NSE）和州标准相关的课程，这些课程将使学生能够设计和进行实验，以研究滥用药物的药理学（咖啡因，尼古丁，酒精），并学习如何使用这些药理作用来预测和建模人类成瘾的方面。平面主义者是理想的生物，因为他们拥有一些认为最早的“大脑”，并且具有由成瘾性物质瞄准的哺乳动物样神经递质系统。 Rawls博士的广泛出版记录研究了平面主义者滥用药物对药物的药理作用，这表明这些生物是学生研究使成瘾过程永久存在的条件的理想选择，包括身体依赖，戒断，敏感性，容忍，容忍和环境环境地位。预计科学家，教育者和学生之间的拟议合作伙伴关系将导致针对4-12年级学生的可再现药物滥用计划的发展，实施和传播，这是可持续的，这些计划是可持续的，超过了初始赠款期的期限。我们希望这个新颖的计划能够实现学生对吸毒科学知识的知识，提高学生对动物在基础科学研究中的护理和使用的认识，改变学生对药物滥用的态度以及增强学生对从事生物医学研究职业的兴趣的认识。