Rachael Saporito

Undergraduate Student

     B.A.   Neuroscience, Vanderbilt University, expected 2013

Biosketch and Research Interests
Rachael Saporito is an undergraduate student who joined the Conn laboratory in August 2010. Rachael is working towards her Bachelor’s Degree at Vanderbilt University. From August 2009 to May 2010, Rachael researched working memory and attention deficits of schizophrenia and bipolar patients at Sohee Park’s Clinical Neuroscience Lab. In the Conn lab, Rachael is working under Michael Bubser, Ph.D. to compare the immediate-early gene expression pattern elicited by allosteric modulators of M1 and M4 muscarinic cholinergic receptors. She will use drug-induced c-fos expression in guiding her effort to discover and develop novel compounds/mechanism for the treatment of schizophrenia. Specifically, she will assess the ability of positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) of M1 and M4 muscarinic cholinergic receptors to elicit c-fos expression in the forebrain of rats. The effects of M1 and M4 PAMs in the prefrontal cortex, the striatal complex (nucleus accumbens and caudate-putamen), and in the hypothalamus will be compared to typical (haloperidol) and atypical (clozapine) APDs.