Hot Off the Press – October 2023 Published in Current Biology by Thorsten Kahnt, et al. Summary Predictive cues typically come in bunches and combining their predictions may improve behavior. Yet, we know almost nothing about how people process reward predictions from multiple cues as well as the brain mechanisms that are involved. Our manuscript… [Read More]
Hot off the Press
High-precision mapping reveals the structure of odor coding in the human brain
Hot Off the Press – September 2023 Published in Nature Neuroscience by Thorsten Kahnt, et al. Summary Odorous molecules evoke distributed patterns of activity in olfactory cortices but how these patterns map onto inherently subjective odor percepts has remained unclear. In this study, Sagar and colleagues addressed this question by collecting high-resolution neural and perceptual… [Read More]
PPARα and PPARγ are expressed in midbrain dopamine neurons and modulate dopamine- and cannabinoid-mediated behavior in mice
Hot Off the Press – August 28, 2023 Published in Molecular Psychiatry by Briana Hempel and Zheng-Xiong Xi, et al. of the NIDA IRP Addiction Biology Unit. In this research paper, Briana Hempel et al. investigated the role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) in the CNS effects of cannabinoids. The study focuses on two specific… [Read More]
Flow Cytometry of Synaptoneurosomes (FCS) Reveals Increased Ribosomal S6 and Calcineurin Proteins in Activated Medial Prefrontal Cortex to Nucleus Accumbens Synapses
Hot Off the Press – June 27, 2023 Published in The Journal of Neuroscience by Javier Rubio and Bruce Hope, et al. of the NIDA IRP Neuronal Ensembles in Drug Addiction Section. The study is a novel approach to study molecular alterations in individual synapses using Flow Cytometry of Synaptoneurosomes (FCS). The FCS approach was… [Read More]
Overdose mortality rates for opioids and stimulant drugs are substantially higher in men than in women: state-level analysis
Hot Off the Press – June 22, 2023 A new collaborative study coauthored by investigators from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NIDA-IRP, and NIDA-HQ showed that fatal overdoses on opioids or psychostimulants are 2-3 times more common in men than in women. This sex difference is far larger than those seen in most health-related behaviors. … [Read More]
AI-based analysis of social media language predicts addiction treatment dropout at 90 days
Hot Off the Press – May 23, 2023 Published in Neuropsychopharmacology by Brenda Curtis and Salvatore Giorgi of the NIDA IRP Technology and Translational Research Unit in collaboration with other researchers. Summary Assessing an individual’s risk of substance use treatment dropout traditionally involves comprehensive, structured interviews which are time consuming and costly to administer. More… [Read More]
Role of Piriform Cortex and Its Afferent Projections in Relapse to Fentanyl Seeking after Food Choice-Induced Voluntary Abstinence
Hot Off the Press – May 18, 2023 Summary NIDA researchers previously showed a role of Pir in fentanyl relapse after food choice-induced voluntary abstinence in rats, a procedure mimicking human abstinence or a significant reduction in drug self-administration because of the availability of alternative nondrug rewards. Here, they aimed to further characterize the role… [Read More]
Dopaminergic prediction errors in the ventral tegmental area reflect a multithreaded predictive model
Hot Off the Press – May 5, 2023 Published in Nature Neuroscience by Yuji Takahashi, Thomas Stalnaker, Lauren Mueller, and Geoffrey Schoenbaum of the NIDA IRP Behavioral Neurophysiology Neuroscience Section. Summary Dopamine neurons signal reward prediction errors – critical teaching signals that are broadcast throughout the brain to undergird associative learning. Current models applied to… [Read More]
The role of the lateral orbitofrontal cortex in creating cognitive maps
Hot Off the Press – March 28, 2023 Published in Nature Neuroscience by Kauê Machado Costa and Geoffrey Schoenbaum of the NIDA IRP Behavioral Neurophysiology Neuroscience Section. Summary We use mental models of the world – also called cognitive maps – to guide behavior. Several mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and substance use disorder, involve disruptions… [Read More]
Effect of Selective Lesions of Nucleus Accumbens µ-Opioid Receptor-Expressing Cells on Heroin Self-Administration in Male and Female Rats: A Study with Novel Oprm1-Cre Knock-in Rats
Hot Off the Press – March 16, 2023 Summary The brain µ-opioid receptor (MOR) is critical for the analgesic, rewarding, and addictive effects of opioid drugs. However, in rat models of opioid-related behaviors, the circuit mechanisms of MOR-expressing cells are less known because of a lack of genetic tools to selectively manipulate them. We introduce… [Read More]
