Ryan W. Logan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology
Director and Principal Investigator, Laboratory of Sleep, Rhythms, and Addiction
Research Interests
Dr. Logan’s research aims to understand how sleep and circadian rhythms contribute to the vulnerability of substance use disorders. His work integrates tools across genetics, molecular biology, and neuroscience to examine the cellular and molecular mechanisms in the brain involved in 1) the development of drug dependence, craving and relapse and 2) to understand the impact of sleep and circadian rhythm disruption on reward-related and motivated behaviors, to ultimately, 3) identify novel molecular targets to develop therapeutics and interventions for addiction. Dr. Logan’s laboratory uses translational approaches from humans to animals to examine the relationship between sleep, circadian rhythms, and addiction.
Dr. Logan is recognized as a leader in the field of circadian rhythms and addiction research, a largely understudied area of research with high translational value and clinical impact. His research program offers several unique factors that distinguishes his laboratory from others in the field. First, by examining the molecular alterations related to psychiatric disorders in the human postmortem brain, his work is able to identify the pathologies associated with substance use disorders in humans to then target and manipulate related pathways using animal models to uncover mechanisms of addiction. Second, by leveraging genetically diverse mouse populations and computational tools, his work uncovers the genetic and molecular mechanisms that regulate sleep and circadian rhythms, involved in substance use disorders. Third, by using both forward and reverse translational approaches in humans and animals, his work identifies important molecular factors that can be targeted in the development of therapeutics to treat substance use disorders and comorbid mood disorders.