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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…

Featured Paper of the Month – June 2017
Published in Neuropsychopharmacology by Zapata, Agustin; Hwang, Eun-Kyung; Lupica, Carl R

The lateral habenula (LHb) is a brain structure receiving inputs from limbic forebrain areas and innervating major midbrain monoaminergic nuclei. Evidence indicates LHb involvement in sleep control, reward-based decision making, avoidance of punishment, and responses to stress. Additional work has established that the LHb mediates negative feedback in response to aversive events…