Professor Agrawal

Arpana Agrawal

Professor of Psychiatry
PHD - Virginia Commonwealth University
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    • Washington University School of Medicine
    • Department of Psychiatry
    • CB 8134
    • 660 S. Euclid
    • St. Louis, MO 63110
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    Arpana Agrawal's research focuses on epidemiological and genomic approaches to the study of substance use and addiction. She is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to study how genetic and environmental factors work together to shape our liability to use cannabis and become addicted to it.

    In addition, I am co-PI of the Substance Use Disorders Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC). The goal of our working group is to identify common genetic variants that are related to liability for alcohol, nicotine, cannabis and other drug use disorders, and further to relate these loci (and their aggregate effect) to genetic risk for other psychiatric traits (e.g., personality) and disorders (e.g., depression). I co-lead the Interface of Psychology, Neuroscience and Genetics (IPNG) Summer Genetics workshop with Dr. Bogdan and teach Genes, Environment and Human Behavior (Psych 345).

    Publications

    • AGRAWAL A, Nelson EC, Bucholz KK, Tillman R, Grucza R, Statham D, Madden PAF, Martin NG, Heath AC & Lynskey M. Major Depressive Disorder, Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors, and Cannabis involvement in Discordant Twins: a Retrospective Cohort Study. 2017. Lancet Psychiatry. Sep;4(9):706-714.

    • Nelson EC, AGRAWAL A, Heath AC, Bogdan R, Sherva R, et al. Evidence of CNIH3 involvement in opioid dependence. Mol Psychiatry. 2016 May;21(5):608-14. PubMed PMID: 26239289; NIHMSID: NIHMS701291; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4740268.

    • Pagliaccio D, Barch DM, Bogdan R, Wood PK, Lynskey MT,  Heath AC, AGRAWAL A. Shared Predisposition in the Association Between Cannabis Use and Subcortical Brain Structure. JAMA Psychiatry. 2015 Oct;72(10):994-1001.