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Headshot of Sierra Simpson.

Sierra Simpson, PhD

Sierra Simpson is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the George Lab at the University of California, San Diego where she studies the gut brain axis and addiction. Her interests center around in the underpinnings of the interaction of the gut-microbiome and opioid use disorder. Sierra aims to create diagnostics to determine the risk of opioid escalation and develop novel small molecule treatments for opioid use disorder.

By This Contributor

  • Figure 1: Microbiome depletion alters how the brain responds to opioids. Microbiome intact animals in the intoxication state (left) exhibited increases in neuronal recruitment (green arrows) in the basolateral amygdala (BLA), while the central amygdala (CeA), periaqueductal gray (PAG), and locus coeruleus (LC) do not exhibit increases (blue dash) compared to control animals. During withdrawal, microbiome intact animals exhibit increased recruitment of the CeA and lateral habenula (LHB) compared to control animals.  Microbiome depleted animals (right) exhibit a reduction of recruitment in the BLA, and increases in the CeA, PAG, and LC in the intoxication state compared to intact animals. Additionally, microbiome depleted animals in the withdrawal state exhibit a decrease in the CeA and an increase in recruitment in the Lateral Habenula (LHB) compared to intact animals.
    Depletion of the Microbiome Changes How the Brain Responds to Opioids
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