Featured Paper of the Month

Featured Paper of the Month – August 2023
Published in Biological Psychiatry by Leslie Ramsey, and Marco Venniro, et al. of the NIDA IRP Neurobiology of Relapse Section.

Using a battery of behavioral tests, we demonstrated that female CD1 mice find social interaction more rewarding compared to female C57BL/6J mice. Our data show that CD1 mice are a better strain for studying female social reward learning.

Featured Paper of the Month – July 2023
Published in The Journal of Medicinal Chemistry by Emma Gogarnoiu, Caleb Vogt and Amy Hauck Newman, et al. of the NIDA IRP Medicinal Chemistry Section.

Cocaine and methamphetamine are highly addictive psychostimulants that continue to challenge the health and well-being of those who develop a psychostimulant use disorder (PSUD). To date, there are no FDA approved medications for the treatment of PSUD and this provides a significant challenge to curb its destructive nature and prevent death by overdose.

Featured Paper of the Month – June 2023
Published in Biological Psychiatry by Marjorie Levinstein and Michael Michaelides, et al. of the NIDA IRP Biobehavioral Imaging and Molecular Neuropsychopharmacology Unit.

In this study, we show that S-ketamine not only binds to and activates MOR, but that this interaction is critical for its abuse liability. Specifically, we show that the opioid receptor antagonist naltrexone blocks brain activation by (S)-ketamine in the nucleus accumbens, a region crucial for reward, and also decreases lever pressing for (S)-ketamine in rats.

Featured Paper of the Month – May 2023
Published in PNAS with contributions from Carl Lupica, Alexander Hoffman, and Michael Baumann of the NIDA IRP.

Here we demonstrate that various DAT inhibitors can be distinguished based on their in vitro binding kinetics, whereby the dissociation rate (i.e., Koff) of a drug from DAT in vitro predicts the duration of its stimulant effects in vivo.

Featured Paper of the Month – April 2023
Published in Science Advances by Oscar Solís and Michael Michaelides et al. from the NIDA IRP Biobehavioral Imaging and Molecular Neuropsychopharmacology Unit.

In our study, we investigated the potential impact of the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on estrogen receptors. To do so, we used computational and biochemical methods to study the binding of the spike protein to human estrogen receptors…

Featured Paper of the Month – March 2023
Published in PNAS by Ying Duan, Pei-Jung Tsai and Yihong Yang, et al. from the NIDA IRP Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy Section.

Compulsive drug use, as the defining feature of substance use disorder, is attributed to disadvantageous decision-making and has been associated with dysfunction of frontal-midbrain systems. The habenula is a relay node between forebrain and midbrain regions and processes negative feedback in response to aversive events. To understand the contributions of frontal-habenula-midbrain circuits in the development of drug dependence, we employed a rat model of methamphetamine self-administration in the presence of concomitant footshock, which has been proposed to model compulsive drug-taking in humans…

Featured Paper of the Month – February 2023
Published in Molecular Psychiatry with authors from the NIDA IRP Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology Section and Neurobiology of Addiction Section.

The steroid hormone aldosterone regulates fluid and electrolyte homeostasis mainly via its mineralocorticoid receptor. Previous studies suggest that this pathway may also modulate alcohol seeking and consumption. Spironolactone is a nonselective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist primarily used in clinical practice to treat cardiovascular conditions. Preliminary evidence indicates that spironolactone may also reduce alcohol use…

Featured Paper of the Month – January 2023
Published in Science Advances by Yi He and Zheng-Xiong Xi, et al. of the NIDA IRP Addiction Biology Unit.

It is well known that physical exercise is rewarding and protective against drug abuse and addiction. However, the neural mechanisms underlying these actions are not fully understood. In this report, we found that prolonged daily voluntary wheel-running produced a more robust increase in c-fos expression in the red nucleus (RN) than in other brain regions. Subsequent neuronal tracing imaging and electrophysiological assays demonstrated that most RN neurons are glutamatergic in its magnocellular portion (RNm) and wheel-running activates a subset of RNm glutamate neurons that project to the neighboring ventral tegmental area (VTA), particularly to contralateral VTA dopamine neurons…

Featured Paper of the Month – December 2022
Published in The Journal of Neuroscience by Clara Wolfe and Carl Lupica et al. of the NIDA IRP Electrophysiology Research Section.

The lateral habenula (LHb) is a brain region receiving information from brain areas involved in decision making, with influence on motivation, reward, and movement. This interface between thoughts, emotions, and actions is how the LHb permits adaptive behavior, and LHb dysfunction is implicated in psychiatric and drug use disorders. Silencing the LHb impairs control over cocaine seeking in rats and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (mAChR) are also implicated…

Featured Paper of the Month – November 2022
Published in Neuropsychopharmacology by Thomas Ross and Elliot Stein of the NIDA IRP Neuroimaging Research Branch.

The striatum, part of the forebrain, is critically involved in reward processes and substance use. Many of the inputs to the striatum come from frontal brain regions. One way to study these connections in living humans is using a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A common fMRI approach, resting-state functional connectivity, typically examines the temporal similarity of the signals from two brain areas: essentially looking at the connection between ‘point A’ and ‘point B’…