Fitxa persona

Professor and researcher at the Department of Psychobiology (University of Valencia) since

1994 (6 quinquennia and 5 sexennia), full professor from 2017. As teacher, I have given degree and master courses, I have published two books and several chapters of book. I have also performed management activities in the University. As researcher, I am the leader of the Research Unit “Neurobehavioural mechanisms and endophenotypes of addictive behaviour”.

Our research is focus in behavioral and pharmacological experiments on animal models. We use a wide variety of learning, memory and brain disorders paradigms, especially animal models of addictive behavior. I have participated as active researcher in more than 28 research

projects financed by national and local institutions. I have supervised 4 doctoral thesis, 4

degree thesis, 3 research works and 16 final master works. Now, I am supervising one

doctoral thesis. I have performed research periods in other national and international

Universities and Research Centers and I have colaborated with prestigious researchers. I

have published 130 JCR papers and several book chapters related with my research.

My main scientific contributions to the psychobiology of drug addiction are: 1. To extend the

conditioned place preference (CPP) procedure to study the phenomenon of relapse to drug

use after extinction; 2. To demonstrate the role of several neurotransmitter systems in the

behavioral effects of different drugs of abuse (such as cocaine, alcohol, cannabinoids and

MDMA); 3. To verify the long-term effects of adolescent drug exposure and poly-drug

consumption; 4. To demonstrate the influence of individual (age, sex, novelty-seeking) and

environmental (social stress) variables on the vulnerability to the rewarding effects of

different drugs of abuse; 5. To demonstrate the protective effects of several environmental

manipulations on the response to drugs of abuse; 6. To clarify the mechanisms underlying

(neurotransmitter systems, neuroinflammation, epigenetic processes, etc.) to the influence of

environmental variables of risk and protection to the susceptibility to develop drug addiction

in animal models.

The mid-long term scientific-technic objectives of my research line are: 1. To study the

neurobehavioral mechanisms of resilience to the negative effects of social stress on the

response to drugs of abuse, 2. To identify behavioral and neurochemical biomarkers of

resilience or vulnerability to drug abuse, 3. To perform environmental and pharmacologic

manipulations that increased the resilience to the effects of social stress on the rewarding

properties of drugs of abuse; 4. To evaluate the underlying mechanism to the resilience

(neurotransmitter systems, neuroinflammation, epigenetics, microbiota, etc.) 5. To evaluate

the long-term behavioral consequences of several environmental manipulations on

adolescence (including diet exposure and drug consumption) and to puzzle out the

underlying mechanism of action. The inclusion and consideration of the variable sex is

essential in all of these projects. The achievement of these objectives will contribute without

any doubt to identify new therapeutic targets for the treatment of drug addiction and to the

development of strategies to prevent this disorder.