Enter the text here that is the new abstract information for your application. This section must be no longer than 30 lines of text. This is an application for a Support of Research Enhancement (SuRE) R16 award. These grants are intended to support small scale research projects at institutions like Northern Kentucky University that do not receive substantial NIH funding, with an additional emphasis on providing biomedical research experiences to undergraduate students and enhancing the research environment at the university. Antipsychotic drugs (APDs) are widely used in children mainly as off-label treatments for a multitude of pediatric psychiatric disorders, despite the lack of basic research documenting their effects on later brain and behavioral function. One concern is that APD exposure during early brain development alters later sensitivity to drugs of abuse. Our previous NIH-funded research showed that adult rats administered the APD, risperidone, early in life are hyperactive, exhibit enhanced locomotor and rewarding responses to the psychostimulant, D-amphetamine, and display alterations in forebrain dopamine transporters and receptors. These data were generated by undergraduate students at NKU, many of whom served as first- or co- authors on published papers, and some of whom went on to pursue graduate study in psychology. Having ascertained that early-life risperidone modifies responses to psychostimulant drugs that directly target dopamine synapses, we now seek to determine if behavioral and neural sensitivity to other classes of drugs, such as opioids, that indirectly work though dopamine pathways is enhanced by early-life risperidone. The proposed work will ascertain whether behavioral, neural, and genetic responses to the opioid drug, oxycodone, are altered in adult rats administered risperidone early in life (daily injections from postnatal day 14-42). This issue is especially germane to NKU students since our geographic area is marked by relativ