Priscila Costa

Current Appointments

Postdoctoral Researcher

Key Research Areas

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Priscila joined NeuRA in 2023 as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Preclinical Schizophrenia Research Laboratory led by Dr Tertia Purves-Tyson. Her work predominantly relates to a NSW Health grant awarded to Dr Purves-Tyson in 2022, which aims to uncover how microglial cells may be modifying the effects of specific pharmacotherapies on schizophrenia-like behaviours during adolescence and adulthood in an animal model of dopamine dysregulation. As part of this work, Priscila will also be investigating whether potential alterations in microglial cell function occur in a sex-specific manner.

Priscila completed her Bachelor degree in Biomedical Science at EBMSP in 2010 and her Master’s degree of Pharmacology and Toxicology at UFCSPA in 2014, both high ranked universities in Brazil. She moved to Australia in 2015, collaborating as a Visiting Scholar on a research project of cannabidiol and synthetic oxytocin effects in methamphetamine addiction in rats in the Behavioural Neuropharmacology laboratory at Macquarie University. Priscila submitted her PhD thesis, which examined the brain and behaviour effect of alcopops use in adolescence and the predisposition for methamphetamine use in male and female adult rats, in late 2022.

Publications

2026 Mar

A CBD-rich hemp extract is superior to CBD alone in reducing relapse to methamphetamine-seeking in rats

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1197586004

2024 Aug

Adolescent alcohol binge drinking and withdrawal: behavioural, brain GFAP-positive astrocytes and acute methamphetamine effects in adult female rats

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1171380832

2022 Aug

Cannabis extract alone and in combination with cannabidiol reduces relapse to methamphetamine and locomotor sensitization

View full conference-abstract on https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/f8a77f97-b4b9-45df-987a-3aae1fa3cc9c

2022 Aug

Cannabis extract alone and in combination with cannabidiol reduces relapse to methamphetamine and locomotor sensitization

2022 Aug

Sex-dependent behavioural and brain effects of young rats after alcohol binge drinking and methamphetamine self-administration

View full conference-abstract on https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/1bc9a14c-045b-4197-b558-3fde53b31645

2022 Aug

Sex-dependent behavioural and brain effects of young rats after alcohol binge drinking and methamphetamine self-administration

2022 May

Cannabidiol but not cannabidiolic acid reduces behavioural sensitisation to methamphetamine in rats, at pharmacologically effective doses

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1147186682

2022 Jan

Effects of neonatal dopaminergic lesion on oral cocaine self-administration in rats: Higher female vulnerability to cocaine consumption

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1144030699

2021 Jan

The vagus nerve mediates the suppressing effects of peripherally administered oxytocin on methamphetamine self-administration and seeking in rats

View full journal-article on https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1127866586

2019 May

BEHAVSOFT- Software for Scoring Animal Behavior

View all publications

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