Briana M Mason, PhD
Department of Pharmacology
*Funded by the VA
Dr. Mason is a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Gregory T Collins in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She completed her undergraduate education at the University of Massachusetts Boston, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in the field of Biology and graduating with honors in 2014. She chose to return to the University of Massachusetts Boston for her graduate studies as a doctoral candidate in the Developmental and Brain Sciences Ph.D. Program, which was hosted by a talented assortment of Psychology and Honors College faculty members in the College of Liberal Arts. She earned her Ph.D. in 2019.
She currently possesses two primary research aims. Firstly, to characterize the abuse-related and reinforcing effects of synthetic cathinones (known colloquially as “bath salts”), novel drugs of abuse that are becoming more and more prevalent in society. Secondly, to understand how inflammation may influence drug-taking behaviors in rodent models. Dr. Mason’s main interests, broadly, are in models of substance use disorders and neuropsychopharmacology.
CONTACT INFO:
RESEARCH AREAS
- Animal models of substance abuse
- Developmental animal behavior
- Pharmacology
- Immune signaling
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Mason is an accomplished early-career researcher. Her passion for biological research first stemmed from her internship in the Continuing Undergraduate Research Experiences (CURE) Program sponsored by the Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center in Boston, Massachusetts. In this experience, under the guidance of Dr. Catherine Nutt, she was able to develop hands-on practice in the scientific method, conceptualization of scientific experiments, and exchange with like-minded interns. She continued to grow by completing undergraduate coursework and working as a research assistant in the laboratory of Dr. Kenneth Campbell. There, she excelled in both bench and computational laboratory techniques such as Western blotting, immunoassay, and statistical processing of bioinformatic data.
Working with the Ronald E. McNair Achievement Program as an undergraduate strongly influenced her decision to pursue a career as an independent research scientist. In fellowship with other students, she became a doctoral candidate in the University of Massachusetts’ Developmental and Brain Sciences Ph.D. Program. Over the next five years, Briana received mentorship in the laboratory of Dr. S. Tiffany Donaldson, whose research areas were concentrated on adolescence, sex differences, and the effects of abused substances on behavior. As a doctoral candidate, she became adept in a plethora of histochemical and microscopy techniques while establishing several successful collaborations with other developmental neuroscience laboratories.
Now, after achieving her Ph.D., she has progressed towards independence through fellowship with the Addiction Research, Training, and Teaching Center at UTHSCSA. Briana is currently completing new research in the laboratory of Dr. Gregory T Collins. Her research activities include analyses of anti-inflammatory drug effects and synthetic cathinones on self-administration behavior in rats. She aspires to establish her laboratory with a specialization in preclinical behavioral and pharmacotherapeutic treatment research in the future.
PUBLICATIONS
Mason B, Rollins LG, Asumadu E, Cange C, Walton N, & Donaldson ST. (2018). Nesting environment provides sex-specific neuroprotection in a rat model of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic injury. Front Behav Neurosci. PMID30356904.
Ravenelle R, Berman AK, La J, Mason B, Asumadu E, Yelleswarapu C, & Donaldson ST. (2018). Sex matters: females in proestrus show greater diazepam anxiolysis and brain‐derived neurotrophin factor‐and parvalbumin‐positive neurons than males. Eur J Neurosci. PMID29461650.
La J, Mason B, Donaldson T, & Yelleswarapu C. (2017). Open Source Interface for 2D and 3D Analysis: Bridging the Gap between Experimentalists and Image Specialists. In Applied Industrial Optics: Spectroscopy, Imaging and Metrology (pp. JTu5A-22). Optical Society of America.