Laurel Seemiller

Laurel Seemiller is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Crowley Lab at the Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University. She is affiliated with the Eberly College of Science and specializes in neurobiological mechanisms underlying addiction, alcohol-related neuroadaptations, and stress responses. Her research focuses on sex-specific and strain-dependent behavioral and molecular changes in rodents exposed to alcohol, nicotine, and stress across developmental stages.

Her research interests include:

• Neurobiology of alcohol and substance use
• Developmental neuroplasticity
• Genetic influences on addiction-related behaviors
• Interactions between fear conditioning and pharmacological agents

Recent work highlights novel findings on somatostatin signaling disruptions in alcohol-exposed mice, strain-specific vulnerability to fear learning deficits, and cross-sensitization effects of adolescent alcohol and nicotine exposure. Her studies often utilize inbred mouse models (e.g., C57BL/6J, DBA/2J) to investigate neurobiological and genetic factors influencing addiction and cognitive outcomes.

Laurel collaborates with the Crowley Lab to explore long-term neurobehavioral consequences of adolescent substance exposure, with particular attention to sex differences and translational implications for human addiction research.