Featured Paper of the Month

Orbitofrontal neurons signal sensory associations underlying model-based inference in a sensory preconditioning task.

Featured Paper of the Month – July 2018
Published in Elife by Sadacca, Brian F; Wied, Heather M; Lopatina, Nina; Saini, Gurpreet K; Nemirovsky, Daniel; Schoenbaum, Geoffrey

Using knowledge of the structure of the world to infer value is at the heart of model-based reasoning and relies on a circuit that includes the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Some accounts link this to the representation of biological significance or value by neurons in OFC, while other models focus on the representation of associative structure or cognitive maps. Here we tested between these accounts by recording OFC neurons in rats during an OFC-dependent sensory preconditioning task…

Delta Rhythm Orchestrates the Neural Activity Underlying the Resting State BOLD Signal via Phase–amplitude Coupling.

Featured Paper of the Month – June 2018
Published in Cerebral Cortex by Jaime, Saul; Gu, Hong; Sadacca, Brian F; Stein, Elliot A; Cavazos, Jose E; Yang, Yihong; Lu, Hanbing

Our brains always work, consciously or unconsciously. Functional connectivity MRI has identified so-called resting state brain networks (e.g. default mode network). Aberrant activity in such networks is implicated in neurological and psychiatric disorders. This work applies simultaneous electrophysiological recording and functional MRI to investigate the neurophysiological basis of the network activity…

Fentanyl-Induced Brain Hypoxia Triggers Brain Hyperglycemia and Biphasic Changes in Brain Temperature.

Featured Paper of the Month – May 2018
Published in Neuropsychopharmacology by Solis, Ernesto Jr; Cameron-Burr, Keaton T; Shaham, Yavin; Kiyatkin, Eugene A

Fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid used clinically to treat pain and as a general anesthetic. Recently, fentanyl has emerged as a recreational drug and its overdose has been linked to numerous deaths in the US. To better understand how fentanyl affects the brain, we used electrochemical techniques in rats and examined the effect of intravenous fentanyl on oxygen and glucose levels in the nucleus accumbens, a brain region implicated in reward and addiction…

Lateral Preoptic Control of the Lateral Habenula through Convergent Glutamate and GABA Transmission.

Featured Paper of the Month – April 2018
Published in Cell Reports by Barker, David J; Miranda-Barrientos, Jorge; Zhang, Shiliang; Root, David H; Wang, Hui-Ling; Liu, Bing; Calipari, Erin S; Morales, Marisela

The lateral habenula (LHb) is a brain structure that participates in cognitive and emotional processing and has been implicated in several mental disorders. Although one of the largest inputs to the LHb originates in the lateral preoptic area (LPO), little is known about how the LPO participates in the regulation of LHb function. In their recent study, Barker and colleagues provide evidence that the LPO exerts bivalent control over the LHb through the convergent transmission of excitatory LPO glutamate and inhibitory LPO g-aminobutyric acid (GABA) onto single LHb neurons…

Exogenous ghrelin administration increases alcohol self-administration and modulates brain functional activity in heavy-drinking alcohol-dependent individuals.

Featured Paper of the Month – March 2018
Published in Molecular Psychiatry by Farokhnia, M; Grodin, E N; Lee, M R; Oot, E N; Blackburn, A N; Stangl, B L; Schwandt, M L; Farinelli, L A; Momenan, R; Ramchandani, V A; Leggio, L

Understanding the neurobiological substrates of excessive alcohol consumption may substantially facilitate efforts to develop better treatments. The cross-talk between the gastrointestinal and central nervous systems, often referred to as the gut–brain axis, is a promising yet underexplored domain in this regard. Ghrelin is a hormone primarily produced by the stomach and known for its role in increasing appetite and food intake (the “hunger hormone”)…

Bidirectional Modulation of Intrinsic Excitability in Rat Prelimbic Cortex Neuronal Ensembles and Non-Ensembles after Operant Learning

Featured Paper of the Month – February 2018
Published in The Journal of Neuroscience by Whitaker, Leslie R; Warren, Brandon L; Venniro, Marco; Harte, Tyler C; McPherson, Kylie B; Beidel, Jennifer; Bossert, Jennifer M; Shaham, Yavin; Bonci, Antonello; Hope, Bruce T

Learned associations between environmental stimuli and rewards drive learning and motivated behavior. These memories are thought to be encoded by alterations within specific patterns of sparsely distributed neurons called neuronal ensembles that are selectively activated by reward-predictive stimuli. Here we use the Fos promoter to identify strongly activated neuronal ensembles in rat prelimbic cortex (PLC) and assess altered intrinsic excitability following 10 days of operant food self-administration training. First, we selectively ablated Fos-expressing PLC neurons that were active during food self-administration…

High fat diet disrupts endoplasmic reticulum calcium homeostasis in the rat liver.

Featured Paper of the Month – January 2018
Published in The Journal of Hepatology by Wires, Emily S; Trychta, Kathleen A; Back, Susanne; Sulima, Agnieszka; Rice, Kenner C; Harvey, Brandon K

From the NIDA IRP Molecular Mechanisms of Cellular Stress and Inflammation Section

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is cellular organelle that performs critical functions such as the production and processing of proteins, lipids and drugs. The ER also serves as the primary storage site for calcium inside the cell. Using a novel biological sensor protein called GLuc-SERCaMP developed by our laboratory at the NIDA IRP, we show that high fat diets causes changes to ER calcium in the livers of rats. Unrestricted access to high fat food pellets caused molecular changes to regulators of ER calcium and an increase in markers of fatty liver disease…

Deletion of Type 2 Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor Decreases Sensitivity to Cocaine Reward in Rats.

Featured Paper of the Month – December 2017
Published in Cell Reports by Yang, Hong-Ju; Zhang, Hai-Ying; Bi, Guo-Hua; He, Yi; Gao, Jun-Tao; Xi, Zheng-Xiong

The etiology and pathophysiology of drug addiction are still not well understood. In this research paper, we show that genetic deletion of mGluR2, a presynaptic glutamate autoreceptor, decreases sensitivity to cocaine reward that causes a compensatory increase in cocaine intake and a decrease in relapse to cocaine-seeking behavior in rats…

A relationship between the aldosterone-mineralocorticoid receptor pathway and alcohol drinking: preliminary translational findings across rats, monkeys and humans.

Featured Paper of the Month – November 2017
Published in Molecular Psychiatry by Aoun, E G; Jimenez, V A; Vendruscolo, L F; Walter, N A R; Barbier, E; Ferrulli, A; Haass-Koffler, C L; Darakjian, P; Lee, M R; Addolorato, G; Heilig, M; Hitzemann, R; Koob, G F; Grant, K A; Leggio, L

This paper describes three separate studies, conducted with non-human primates, rats, and humans, that investigated the potential contribution of the hormone aldosterone and its mineralocorticoid receptor to alcohol use disorder. Taken together, these findings suggest a relationship between excessive alcohol use, alcohol use disorder, and specific changes in the aldosterone/ mineralocorticoid receptor pathway marked by increased circulating aldosterone and decreased mineralocorticoid receptor gene expression in the amygdala…

Compulsive Addiction-like Aggressive Behavior in Mice.

Featured Paper of the Month – October 2017
Published in Biological Psychiatry by Golden, Sam A; Heins, Conor; Venniro, Marco; Caprioli, Daniele; Zhang, Michelle; Epstein, David H; Shaham, Yavin

Some people are highly motivated to seek aggressive encounters, and among those who have been incarcerated for such behavior, recidivism rates are high. These observations echo two core features of drug addiction: high motivation to seek addictive substances, despite adverse consequences, and high relapse rates. Here we used established rodent models of drug addiction to determine whether they would be sensitive to “addiction-like” features of aggression in CD-1 mice…