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Faculty by area of expertise 
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Joseph H. Porter
Professor of psychology, affiliate professor of pharmacology and toxicology, affiliate professor of biology, and Director of biopsychology program
Contact information
Phone: (804) 828-0096
E-mail: jporter@vcu.edu
Education
Ph.D. (1974), University of Georgia
Program affiliation
Research interests
My research interests are focused in the field of behavioral pharmacology. I utilize a number of different animal models to study the effects of drugs on behavior and also to determine the mechanisms of action of drugs. One of my primary research interests has been the behavioral pharmacology of antipsychotic drugs used to treat schizophrenia. Typical antipsychotics, such as haloperidol, are effective in relieving the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, but have a very high incidence of producing extrapyramidal motor side effects in most patients. In recent years, the development of the atypical antipsychotic clozapine has lead to a renewed search for new antipsychotics that not only relieve the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, but also have a very low incidence of motor side effects in patients. In my laboratory, one of the most important animal models we use is drug discrimination. In this procedure animals are trained to discriminate between the subjective effects of a drug injection and a placebo injection in either a two or three lever operant procedure. This procedure allows us to “ask” the rat if other drugs are more like the training drug or the placebo, and also allows us to explore the underlying neural mechanisms for the behavioral effects of these drugs. Other animals models used in my lab include a variety of operant procedures, Morris water maze and 8-arm radial maze studies, schedule-induced polydipsia, motor activity studies, and the paw test (a modified test of catalepsy). In addition to the study of atypical antipsychotics, other research interests include research on antidepressants, anxiolytics, and drugs of abuse (e.g., methadone).
Selected publications
Porter J.H., Prus A.J., Varvel S.A., and Vann R.E. (2005). Discriminative stimulus properties of the atypical antipsychotic clozapine and the typical antipsychotic chlorpromazine in a three-choice drug discrimination procedure in rats. Psychopharmacology, 178, 67-77.
Philibin S.D., Prus A.J., Pehrson A.L., and Porter J.H. (2005) Serotonin receptor mechanisms mediate the discriminative stimulus properties of the atypical antipsychotic clozapine in C57BL/6 mice. Psychopharmacology, 180, 49-56.
Varvel, S.A., Vann, R.E., Wise, L.E., Philibin, S.D., and Porter, J.H. (2002) Effects of antipsychotic drugs on operant responding after acute and repeated administration Psychopharmacology, 160, 182-191.
Porter, J.H., Varvel, S.A., Vann, R.E., Philibin, S.D., and Wise, L.E. (2000) Clozapine discrimination with a low training dose distinguishes atypical from typical antipsychotic drugs in rats. Psychopharmacology, 149, 189-193.
Porter, J.H., McCallum, S.E., Varvel, S.A., and Vann, R.E. (2000) The discriminative stimulus properties of the atypical antipsychotic olanzapine in rats. Psychopharmacology, 148, 224-233.
Recent/current courses taught at VCU
- Physiological Psychology, undergraduate level
- Biological Basis of Behavior, graduate level
- Applications of Statistics, undergraduate level
- Research Methods in Biopsychology, graduate level
| Recent grants or awards |
| Effects of Antipsychotic Drugs on Phencyclidine (Pcp) – Induced Impairments in Reference and Working Memory in Mice – Funded by Jeffress Memorial Trust Foundation |
| Delay Procedure in 8-arm Radial Maze - Funded by Roche Palo Alto LLC |
| Effects of Drugs on Schedule-induced Polydipsia in Guinea Pigs – Funded by Pfizer, INC |
| Clozapine Drug Discrimination in C57bl/6j Mice – F31-Predoctoral Fellowship (Scott D. Philibin) |
| Phencyclidine-induced Cognitive Impairments – F31 Predoctoral Fellowship (Alan L. Pehrson) |