Dr. Anika M. Toorie

Anika Toorie
Department, Office, or School
Department of Biology
  • Associate Professor

Education

Ph.D., Brown University.

Courses

BIOL 100 Fundamental concepts of Biology
BIOL 335 Human Physiology
BIOL 320 Cell and Molecular Biology

Research Interests

The Toorie lab focuses on identifying neural and endocrine mechanisms that are disrupted under conditions of metabolic stress. We induce metabolic stress by exposing rodents to obesogenic diets (i.e., high-fat/high-sugar diets) or drugs of abuse (i.e., opioids). Our lab examines the central reward and homeostatic centers in the rodent brain to identify both common and unique molecular targets (i.e., metabolic sensor proteins, neuropeptides, transcription factors, etc.) associated with addiction and/or the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of metabolic syndrome.​​