[3] Monteggia began her PhD at Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University[1] under the mentorship of Marina Wolf, probing the neurobiology of drug abuse in rodents, specifically the role of glutamate in neuroadaptations.
[3] Monteggia found that the expression of the glutamate receptor NMDAR1 drastically decreases in the ventral midbrain, nucleus accumbens, and prefrontal cortex two weeks after the onset of drug abstinence.
[5] These findings indicate that increased excitatory drive of VTA dopamine neurons following chronic amphetamine administration must result from alternative mechanisms than modulation of glutamate receptor expression.
[6] The distinct expression patterns of these channels across regions might highlight the unique ways in which neuronal pacemaker cells affect different brain systems.
In 2014, Monteggia and her lab used a novel inducible knockout system to selectively knock out Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor in the forebrains of mice to explore the role of BDNF in complex behaviors.
[1] Monteggia continued to probe the functions of MeCP2 in the central nervous system (CNS) as well as further explore the mechanisms of actions of BDNF in mediating the effects of antidepressants.
[12] In addition to validating clinical findings of these drugs in animal models, she showed that their effects on NMDAR-mediated neurotransmission and intracellular signalling pathways differ.