Ream Al-Hasani

Ream Al-Hasani is a British neuroscientist and pharmacologist as well as an associate professor of anesthesiology at Washington University School of Medicine. Al-Hasani studies the endogenous opioid system to understand how to target it therapeutically to treat addiction, affective disorders, and chronic pain.

Early life and education Al-Hasani's family moved from Iraq to the UK before she was born, and Al-Hasani grew up in the United Kingdom. She was the only Muslim girl in her school, and though there were not many Middle Eastern role models in science, she became fascinated by the effects of drugs on the brain and decided to pursue a career in academia. She then held an internship at GlaxoSmithKline where she studied neurodegenerative diseases and neuroinflammation.

Graduate work Funded by the Medical Research Council, Al-Hasani pursued graduate studies at the University of Surrey in England. When they compared a strain of highly inbred mice to typical control mice, they found that highly inbred mice had much higher sensitivity to the rewarding properties of heroin yet inbred did not display increased location upon administration of heroin unlike control mice. Since adenosine A(2A) receptors have been known to modulate neurotransmitter systems and modulate neural activity in the striatum, she sought to see if this was also true in the VTA.

Postdoctoral work Al-Hasani moved to America for postdoctoral work, Under his mentorship, she explored the kappa opioid system and associated neural circuitry to understand its role in driving motivated behaviors. In 2013, she published a paper in Neuropsychopharmacology examining the interactions between noradrenergic (NA) and dynorphin/kappa opioid systems in the forebrain. She found that the kappa opioid receptor(KOR)-induced reinstatement of cocaine CPP was potentiated when beta-adrenergic signaling was blocked, and that the interactions between adrenergic signalling and KOR signaling occur external to the locus coeruleus. She found that various stressors cause dysregulation of kappa opioid circuitry, but that mild stressors cause adaptive changes in the kappa opioid circuitry that might be protective against drug relapse. They found that activation of the LC-NE neurons increases stress-induced anxiety and aversion and that inhibition attenuates these behaviors. Specifically, she found that stimulating dynorphinergic cells in the ventral shell of the NAc elicits aversive responses via KOR activation while stimulating dynorphinergic cells in the dorsal shell of the NAc elicits appetitive behaviors mediated by KOR signalling. she also merged wireless optogenetics with pharmacology such that various compounds can be administered to the brain while certain neural circuits are being activated or inhibited to explore the effects of these compounds on neural circuit function and behavioral output. In 2018, she published a method to detect endogenously released peptides from active neural circuits in vivo. She combined in vivo optogenetics with microdialysis to stimulate genetically identified neurons and also detect the peptides that are released that might be mediating neural circuit changes and behavioral outputs.

Role of Kappa Opioid System in Affective Component of Pain In 2019, Al-Hasani helped dissect physical pain from its emotional affective counterpart in a study published in Neuron. Al-Hasani and her colleagues targeted their investigation to the ventral shell of the nucleus accumbens (NAc), which Al-Hasani had previously shown to be involved in negative affective states. They found that pain recruits the dynorphin-kappa opioid system in the NAc, and that the dynorphinergic cells are more active during inflammatory pain due to a decrease in inhibitory inputs onto these cells. Al-Hasani and McCall recently created a program for undergraduates to explore research opportunities and advance current research at Washington University. 2020: Young Investigators Grants from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation "Pathway to Independence Award" from NIDA McCall JG, Al-Hasani R, Siuda ER, Hong DY, Norris AJ, Ford CP, Bruchas MR. CRH engagement of the locus coeruleus noradrenergic system mediates stress-induced anxiety. Neuron. 2015 Aug 5;87(3):605-20. Cited 200 times according to Google Scholar Al-Hasani R, McCall JG, Shin G, Gomez AM, Schmitz GP, Bernardi JM, Pyo CO, Park SI, Marcinkiewcz CM, Crowley NA, Krashes MJ. Distinct subpopulations of nucleus accumbens dynorphin neurons drive aversion and reward. Neuron. 2015 Sep 2;87(5):1063-77. Cited 145 times according to Google Scholar Trang T, Al-Hasani R, Salvemini D, Salter MW, Gutstein H, Cahill CM. Pain and poppies: the good, the bad, and the ugly of opioid analgesics. Journal of Neuroscience. 2015 Oct 14;35(41):13879-88. Cited 122 times according to Google Scholar