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Eduardo Butelman, Ph.D.

Research Associate Professor
Biology of Addictive Diseases
Eduardo.Butelman@rockefeller.edu



Dr. Butelman is interested in quantitatively defining the in vivo effects of neuropeptides and their synthetic analogs at the κ opioid receptor system. His aim is to open the door for the development of new pharmacotherapeutic treatments for opiate and cocaine addiction based on a better understanding of their etiology.

Dr. Butelman's earlier work focused on quantifying in vivo effects of the neuropeptide dynorphin — an unstable compound that acts at the κ opioid receptor — to countermodulate the rewarding effects of drugs of abuse. Using the hormone prolactin as a biomarker for dynorphin levels, Dr. Butelman defined the maximum and minimum pharmacological efficacy of this endogenous agonist at the κ opioid receptor system, which is thought to be involved in priming a state of heightened vulnerability to relapse.

More recently, Dr. Butelman has focused on characterizing the basic pharmacology of salvinorin A, a plant-derived hallucinogenic compound that is chemically unrelated to all known opioid ligands. In 2004, Dr. Butelman and his colleagues were the first to confirm in vivo that salvinorin A is a κ receptor agonist, consistent with a prominent modulation by the κ receptor system of higher perceptual functions. Dr. Butelman also showed that salvinorin A, like dynorphin, increases prolactin levels, which could then be used as biomarkers for salvinorin A activity at κ opioid receptors, and that a κ receptor antagonist could prevent this prolactin surge. In a drug discrimination paradigm, Dr. Butelman showed that subjects did not differentiate the interoceptive effects of salvinorin A from those of a known synthetic κ-agonist. He further showed that a κ receptor antagonist treatment administered before salvinorin A could prevent a behavioral effect of salvinorin A, and also reverse an ongoing effect. This finding indicates that the behavioral effects of salvinorin A are thus completely separate from known "classic" hallucinogens.

CAREER
Dr. Butelman received his Ph.D. in psychology from University College London in the United Kingdom in 1990. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in pharmacology at the University of Michigan, where he was appointed research investigator in 1992. Dr. Butelman joined Rockefeller University as a research associate in Mary Jeanne Kreek's laboratory in 1996. He was promoted to research assistant professor in 2001 and to research associate professor in 2006.