Rebecca
Craft, Ph.D.
Professor
E-Mail: craft@wsu.edu
Phone: (509) 335-5040
Office: Johnson Tower 209
The primary goal of my laboratory is to determine the neurobiological
mechanisms underlying sex differences in behavioral effects of CNS
drugs.
Using animal models, we (1) characterize sex differences in the
psychopharmacological effects of CNS drugs; and (2) determine how
gonadal steroid hormones such as testosterone and estrogen modulate
pain, mood, and the therapeutic and side-effects of psychoactive drugs
such as stimulants (e.g., cocaine), opioids (e.g., morphine),
cannabinoids (e.g, THC) and barbiturates (e.g., pentobarbital). The
clinical applications of this work are (1) the development of
sex-appropriate guidelines for use of psychotherapeutic, analgesic and
anesthetic medications; and (2) improved prevention and treatment of
gonadal steroid hormone-mediated pain and depression.
For more information on my lab go to
http://www.wsu.edu/~craft/index.html
Biographical Information
Rebecca M. Craft, Associate Professor, completed the B.S. degree in
animal science at the University of Maryland in 1981, the M.S. degree in
zoology (animal behavior) at North Carolina State University in 1984,
and the Ph.D. degree in experimental and biological psychology at the
University of North Carolina in 1991. She was a postdoctoral fellow in
the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Arizona and has been
at Washington State University since 1993.
Selected Publications
Craft RM: Sex differences in opioid analgesia: from mouse
to man. Clinical Journal of Pain 19:175-186, 2003.
Craft RM, Morgan MM and Lane DA: Estradiol dampens
reflex-related activity of on- and off-cells in the rostral ventromedial
medulla of female rats. Neuroscience 125:1061-1068, 2004.
Craft RM, Mogil JS and Aloisi AM: Sex differences in pain and
analgesia: the role of gonadal hormones. European Journal of Pain
8:397-411, 2004.
Stoffel EC and Craft RM: Ovarian hormone withdrawal-induced
depression in female rats. Physiology and Behavior 83:505-513,
2004.
Craft RM: Sex differences in behavioral effects of cannabinoids.
Life Sciences 77:2471-2478, 2005.
Craft RM and Leitl MD: Potentiation of morphine antinociception
by pentobarbital in female vs. male rats. Pain 121:115-125, 2006.
