Kathleen A. Grant

Kathleen A. Grant is a Senior Professor at Oregon Health & Science University. Her research integrates behavioral neuroscience, pharmacology, and addiction biology to investigate the neurobiological mechanisms of alcohol dependence, with a focus on the physiological and synaptic adaptations induced by chronic alcohol consumption. Her recent work has elucidated how chronic drinking disrupts gut microbial and metabolic landscapes, modulates midbrain gene transcription and dopamine terminal regulation, and sex-dependently affects IL-6 modulation of GABAergic synapses in the central amygdala of rhesus macaques. She has also explored adaptations in glutathione-based redox protein signaling and the differentiation capacity of hematopoietic stem cells into osteoclast precursors. Her findings, published in venues such as Nature Communications and Current Biology, advance understanding of the enduring synaptic alterations underlying alcohol use disorder.