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Professor Bales Awarded RICH Grant

Professor Karen Bales (Psychology Department) and Professor Melissa Bauman (Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences) received a 2021 Research Investments in Cannabis and Hemp (RICH) grant from the UC Davis Office of Research. The team is one of three to win a $20,000 award. Winners were chosen based on "potential for future discovery and innovation, scientific merit and impact on society and sustainability."

Bales and Bauman aim to collect pilot data on the long-term effects of prenatal THC exposure on pair bonding and other critical social and anxiety-like behaviors using the prairie vole as an animal model. The overarching hypothesis is that "prenatal exposure to THC will alter central gene expression, particularly in the oxytocin, endocannabinoid, vasopressin, dopamine, and serotonin systems, in ways that lead to impaired pair bonding behavior in adult prairie voles."