Reviews To Read – April 3, 2018. from the Addiction Biology Unit Quitting smoking is challenging. The recent development of varenicline (Chantix®) for smoking cessation is a successful story. In this article, we review the strong theoretical rationale, major findings in preclinical and clinical studies with varenicline, and post-market surveillance. We also discuss current major… [Read More]
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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…
NIDA IRP presents awards at the 2018 Baltimore Science Fair
The Baltimore Science Fair was held this past weekend at Towson University. Over 100 middle school and high school students from Baltimore City, Baltimore, Carrol, Cecil, Harford, and Howard Counties participated, spending many hours on Saturday describing their work to a LOT of judges. Judges came from all over, including FDA, other NIH institutes, US… [Read More]
Evidence for functional pre-coupled complexes of receptor heteromers and adenylyl cyclase
Hot Off the Press – March 28, 2018. Scientists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Intramural Research Program (IRP) have uncovered evidence that shows a more complex and elaborate role for the body’s hard-working G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) than previously thought, suggesting a conceptual advance in the fields of biochemistry and pharmacology. With… [Read More]
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”)…
Misuse of Novel Synthetic Opioids: A Deadly New Trend.
Reviews To Read – March 1, 2018. The United States is experiencing an epidemic of opioid overdose deaths. A major factor in this crisis is the increasing availability of potent opioid drugs, including fentanyl and novel synthetic opioids (NSOs). NSOs include various analogs of fentanyl and newly-emerging non-fentanyl compounds which stimulate mu-opioid receptor proteins in… [Read More]
Gs- versus Golf-dependent functional selectivity mediated by the dopamine D1 receptor.
Hot Off the Press – February 15, 2018. The two highly homologous subtypes of stimulatory G proteins Gαs (Gs) and Gαolf (Golf) display contrasting expression patterns in the brain. Golf is predominant in the striatum, while Gs is predominant in the cortex. Yet, little is known about their functional distinctions. The dopamineD1 receptor (D1R) couples to Gs/olf and is highly expressed in cortical… [Read More]
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…
Dopamine Neurons Respond to Errors in the Prediction of Sensory Features of Expected Rewards.
Hot Off the Press! – January 2018. Associative learning is driven by fundamental instructive or teaching signals that reflect errors in the prediction of rewards and other events. Previously dopamine neurons in the midbrain that project widely in the brain have been shown to signal these errors only for value. Here NIDA researchers show that… [Read More]
Compulsive Seekers: Our take. Two Clinicians’ Perspective on a New Animal Model of Addiction
Reviews To Read – January 3, 2018. From the NIDA IRP Real World Assessment, Prediction and Treatment Unit. In this invited commentary, Bill Kowalczyk and I weighed in on a new rat model of addiction developed by Chiara Giuliano in Barry Everitt’s lab at the University of Cambridge. Like other recently developed models of addiction,… [Read More]
