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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…

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…

Featured Paper of the Month – September 2017
Published in Brain by Geng, Xiujuan; Hu, Yuzheng; Gu, Hong; Salmeron, Betty Jo; Adinoff, Bryon; Stein, Elliot A; Yang, Yihong

While chronic cocaine use is associated with abnormalities in both brain structure and function within and interactions between regions, previous studies have been limited to interrogating structure and function independently, and the detected neural differences have not been applied to independent samples to assess the clinical relevance of results…

Featured Paper of the Month – August 2017
Published in Neuropsychopharmacology by Zhang, Hai-Ying; Bi, Guo-Hua; Yang, Hong-Ju; He, Yi; Xue, Gilbert; Cao, Jiajing; Tanda, Gianluigi; Gardner, Eliot L; Newman, Amy Hauck; Xi, Zheng-Xiong

(+/-)Modafinil ((+/-)MOD) and its R-enantiomer (R-modafinil; R-MOD) have been investigated for their potential as treatments for psychostimulant addiction. We recently reported a series of (+/-)MOD analogs, of which JJC8-016 (N-(2-((bis(4-fluorophenyl)methyl)thio)ethyl)-3-phenylpropan-1-amine) was selected for further development. JJC8-016 and R-MOD were evaluated for binding across ~70 receptors, transporters, and enzymes…

Featured Paper of the Month – July 2017
Published in The Journal of Medical Chemistry by Kumar, Vivek; Moritz, Amy E; Keck, Thomas M; Bonifazi, Alessandro; Ellenberger, Michael P; Sibley, Christopher D; Free, Benjamin R; Shi, Lei; Lane, Robert J; Sibley, David R; Newman, Amy Hauck

The development of bitopic ligands directed toward D2-like receptors has proven to be of particular interest to improve the selectivity and/or affinity of these ligands and as an approach to modulate and bias their efficacies. The structural similarities between dopamine D3 receptor (D3R)-selective molecules that display bitopic or allosteric pharmacology and those that are simply competitive antagonists are subtle and intriguing…