Said Kourrich, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

• Experience-induced synaptic and intrinsic plasticity; focus on exposure to drugs of abuse
• Interaction between intrinsic and synaptic excitability in the shaping of global neuronal activity
• Regulation of neuronal excitability by the endoplasmic chaperone protein sigma-1 receptor (Sig-1R)

Featured Publications

Dynamic interaction between sigma-1 receptor and Kv1.2 shapes neuronal and behavioral responses to cocaine.

Kourrich S, Hayashi T, Chuang JY, Tsai SY, Su TP, Bonci A Cell 2013 Jan 152 1-2 236-47

AMPAR-independent effect of striatal aCaMKII promotes the sensitization of cocaine reward.

Kourrich S, Klug JR, Mayford M, Thomas MJ J. Neurosci. 2012 May 32 19 6578-86

Similar neurons, opposite adaptations: psychostimulant experience differentially alters firing properties in accumbens core versus shell.

Kourrich S, Thomas MJ J. Neurosci. 2009 Sep 29 39 12275-83

Cocaine experience controls bidirectional synaptic plasticity in the nucleus accumbens.

Kourrich S, Rothwell PE, Klug JR, Thomas MJ J. Neurosci. 2007 Jul 27 30 7921-8

Behavioral and structural responses to chronic cocaine require a feedforward loop involving ?FosB and calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II in the nucleus accumbens shell.

Robison AJ, Vialou V, Mazei-Robison M, Feng J, Kourrich S, Collins M, Wee S, Koob G, Turecki G, Neve R, Thomas M, Nestler EJ J. Neurosci. 2013 Mar 33 10 4295-307

Methamphetamine Downregulates Striatal Glutamate Receptors via Diverse Epigenetic Mechanisms.

Jayanthi S, McCoy MT, Chen B, Britt JP, Kourrich S, Yau HJ, Ladenheim B, Krasnova IN, Bonci A, Cadet JL. Biol Psychiatry 2013 S0006-3223(13)00915-3

C57BL/6N mutation in cytoplasmic FMRP interacting protein 2 regulates cocaine response.

Kumar V, Kim K, Joseph C, Kourrich S, Yoo SH, Huang HC, Vitaterna MH, de Villena FP, Churchill G, Bonci A, Takahashi JS. Science 2013 342(6165)

The sigma-1 receptor: roles in neuronal plasticity and disease.

Kourrich S, Su TP, Fujimoto M, Bonci A Trends Neurosci. 2012 Dec 35 12 762-71

Environmental novelty causes stress-like adaptations at nucleus accumbens synapses: implications for studying addiction-related plasticity.

Rothwell PE, Kourrich S, Thomas MJ Neuropharmacology 2011 Dec 61 7 1152-9

An embryonic culture system for the investigation of striatal medium spiny neuron dendritic spine development and plasticity.

Penrod RD, Kourrich S, Kearney E, Thomas MJ, Lanier LM J. Neurosci. Methods 2011 Aug 200 1 1-13

 Featured Books

Chapter 5. Synaptic and Neural Plasticity. In Neurobiology of Mental Illness, 4th Edition.

Saïd Kourrich and Antonello Bonci (2013). Oxford University Press

• Society for Neuroscience (2003)