Cody Wenthur
Expert on addiction, abused drugs, opioids, naloxone, psychoactive substances, psilocybin, psychedelics, stress and reward learning, vaccine design, drug development, glutamate
Assistant Professor, Divisions of Pharmacy Practice and Pharmaceutical Sciences School of Pharmacy Work: 608-265-6743 — Home and cell phones available upon request wenthur@wisc.edu Home page Twitter: @WenthurLab
Topics
- Drug reward and learning in addiction and substance use disorders, including opioids, stimulants, cannabinoids, and synthetic psychoactive drugs
- Generation and use of vaccines against psychoactive small molecules as a means to treat drug overdose and addiction
- Generation and use of compounds that alter learning and memory as assistance to behavioral therapies for psychiatric disorders
- Mechanisms of action and therapeutic use for psychedelics, dissociatives, and other rapidly-acting antidepressants
Achievements
- Developed a new vaccine-based method that uses antibodies to understand and mitigate the activity of psychoactive drug mixtures, as published in Nature.
- Generated first-in-class glutamate-targeting compounds and used them to understand the role of this neurotransmitter in alteration of fear and stress learning, as published in PNAS.
- Provided expert input and interviews on addiction-related topics for print and radio outlets, including The Economist, C&EN, ACS Press Releases, and more
- Assessing the role of pharmacological, psychological, and contextual manipulations on the impact of ketamine, psilocybin, and other psychoactive and psychedelic substances through NIMH and others.