Erica Holliday

Biography: Dr. Erica Holliday is an Associate Professor of Psychological Science with Graduate Faculty status in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Her teaching and research focuses on the biological basis of behavior and cognition with an emphasis on substance use and stress interactions. She received her BS in Psychology and MA in Biopsychology from George Mason University and her PhD from Temple University in Psychology and Neuroscience. She completed postdoctoral training at the University of Texas Medical Branch where she supported on a T32 training fellowship, including winning the NIDA Director’s Travel Award and the Outstanding Postdoctoral Civic Service award.

Research: Dr. Erica Holliday’s research focuses on the intricate interplay between substance use and cognitive processes, with a particular emphasis on the neurobiological changes that influence learning and memory during adolescence and continuing into adulthood. Previously, her collaborations with researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Dr. Holliday investigated how altered gene expression contributes to learning deficits associated with substance use and their reversal with dietary modifications.  Her work has laid the foundation for exploring neuropsychosocial mechanisms in substance use disorder (SUD) recovery at Kennesaw State University. Her most recent work, however, has taken her back to her roots of neurobiological examinations of substance use across the lifespan with an emphasis on perinatal exposure and maternal care following prenatal THC exposure and early life stress. A champion of lessening disparities in women’s healthcare her work also explores the neurobiological consequences of pregnancy, especially in learning and memory circuits.

Dr. Holliday’s long-term goals are to establish a truly translational approach to understand the neurobiological underpinnings of addiction, dependence, and recovery. To this end, Dr. Holliday is instrumental in starting the first Biomarker wet lab for the Department of Psychological Science and the first Behavioral Neuroscience Lab housed in the College of Science and Mathematics. She collaborates widely with faculty in Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Science and Math, and Wellstar using a mixed-methods approach with both human subjects and rodent models. See research page for more information.

Mentoring: Dr. Holliday believes in creating an inclusive and welcoming training environment to develop well-rounded student scholars that develop into their own careers. She has mentored students into medical school, law school, graduate school, and careers in aviation, criminal justice, law enforcement, and sales. She maintains active collaborations with Georgia State’s Center for Behavioral Neuroscience where her students have participated in prestigious NSF funded summer internships. She is an active mentor in the U-RISE program (PI: Griffin and Hudson) and participates in First-year scholar programs when projects allow.

Teaching: Dr. Holliday teaches Physiological Psychology, Psychopharmacology, Molecular Techniques in Biological Research, Senior Seminar, and other biological basis of behavior courses. She utilizes a variety of didactic and experiential techniques to engage and inspire students that feel intimidated by ‘science-y’ classes. Since she started at KSU in 2020 she has received outstanding evaluations and student recognition for being their most influential instructor at KSU.

Selected Publications

Jaume-Feliciosi N, Benca-Bachman CE, Holliday E, Palmer RH. Individual Differences in Substance Use Motives, Trauma, and Stress Among College-Based Polysubstance Users. Subst Use Misuse. 2024;59(8):1228-1239. doi: 10.1080/10826084.2024.2330911. Epub 2024 Mar 27. PMID: 38544304; PMCID: PMC11157642.

Holliday, E., Bagasra, A. (2023). Challenges in Recovery Research from a Neuroscience Perspective. Journal of Addiction and Addictive Disorders.

Holliday, E.D, Weingast, L., Chaney, V., McDaniel, J., Hebert, J., Johnston, T., Brown, A. (2022). Beyond Recovery Capital: Novel survey battery to assess psychological domain changes during residential treatment. Journal of Addiction and Recovery.

Holliday, E.D., Logue, S.F., Oliver, C., Bangasser, D.A., Gould, T.J. (2020). Stress and nicotine during adolescence disrupts adult hippocampal-dependent learning and alters stress reactivity. Addiction Biology.

Gitik, M.*, Holliday E.D.*, Leung, M., Yuan, Q., Logue, S.F., Tikkanen, R., Goldman, D., Gould, T.J. (2018). Choline ameliorates adult learning deficits and reverses epigenetic modification of chromatinremodeling factors related to adolescent nicotine exposure. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. *These authors contributed equally.

Neelakantan, H., Holliday, ED, Fox, R.G., Stutz, S.J., Comer, S.D., Haney, M., Anastasio, N.C., Moeller, F.G.,Cunningham, K.A. (2017) Lorcaserin suppresses oxycodone self-administration and relapse vulnerability in rats. ACS Chemical Neuroscience. PMC5454249

Holliday, E.D., Gould, T.J. (2016). Chronic nicotine treatment during adolescence attenuates the effects of acute nicotine in adult contextual fear learning. Nicotine and Tobacco Research PMID: 27613891

Holliday, E.D., Nucero, P., Kutlu, M.G., Oliver, C., Connelly, K.L., Gould, T.J., Unterwald, E.M. (2016). Long[1]term effects of chronic nicotine on emotional and cognitive behaviors and hippocampus cell morphology in mice: comparisons of adult and adolescent nicotine exposure. European Journal of Neuroscience PMID: 27623427 PMC5274542