Featured Paper of the Month – November 2021 Published in Brain Communications by Tianye Zhai and Yihong Yang et al. in the NIDA IRP Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy Section. Summary Cocaine use disorder is a highly relapsing chronic brain disease with current treatments relatively ineffective. Finding brain areas and brain functional circuits that are… [Read More]
Featured Paper of the Month
Lateral habenula cannabinoid CB1 receptor involvement in drug-associated impulsive behavior
Featured Paper of the Month – October 2021 Published in Neuropharmacology by Agustin Zapata and Carl R Lupica in the NIDA IRP Electrophysiology Research Section. Summary Studies show that cannabis increases relapse to cocaine seeking following withdrawal, and in humans cannabis and cocaine use are associated with impulse control deficits. We showed previously that an… [Read More]
A closer look at alcohol-induced changes in the ghrelin system: novel insights from preclinical and clinical data
Featured Paper of the Month – September 2021 Published in Addiction Biology by Sara Deschaine, Mehdi Farokhnia and Lorenzo Leggio et al. in the NIDA IRP Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology Section. Summary Growing evidence shows that ghrelin, a gastric-derived peptide hormone, is involved in regulation of alcohol seeking behavior. Accordingly, the ghrelin system is being… [Read More]
Ventral tegmental area GABA, glutamate, and glutamate-GABA neurons are heterogeneous in their electrophysiological and pharmacological properties
Featured Paper of the Month – August 2021 Published in European Journal of Neuroscience by Jorge Miranda-Barrientos and Marisela Morales, et al. in the NIDA IRP Neuronal Networks Section. Summary The ventral tegmental area (VTA) contains dopamine neurons intermixed with GABA-releasing (expressing vesicular GABA transporter, VGaT), glutamate-releasing (expressing vesicular glutamate transporter 2, VGluT2), and glutamate-GABA… [Read More]
Neuroendocrine Response to Exogenous Ghrelin Administration, Combined With Alcohol, in Heavy-Drinking Individuals: Findings From a Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Human Laboratory Study
Featured Paper of the Month – July 2021 Published in International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology by Mehdi Farokhnia and Lorenzo Leggio, et al. in the NIDA IRP Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology Section. Summary Evidence from preclinical and clinical studies suggest that the orexigenic hormone ghrelin modulates alcohol-seeking behaviors. Accordingly, the ghrelin system is being studied as… [Read More]
Whole brain dynamics during optogenetic self-stimulation of the medial prefrontal cortex in mice
Featured Paper of the Month – June 2021 Published in Communications Biology by Christopher Cover and Hanbing Lu, et al. in the NIDA IRP Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy Section. Summary Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can image brain dynamics while a human subject engages in a goal-directed task, it has proven extremely challenging to… [Read More]
Beyond abstinence and relapse II: momentary relationships between stress, craving, and lapse within clusters of patients with similar patterns of drug use
Featured Paper of the Month – May 2021 Published in Psychopharmacology by Leigh V Panlilio, et al. in the NIDA IRP Real-world Assessment, Prediction, and Treatment Unit. Summary Despite the popular conception that people in treatment for opioid addiction either become abstinent or relapse into a spiral of continuous drug use, many actually continue using drugs… [Read More]
Time-Varying Functional Connectivity Decreases as a Function of Acute Nicotine Abstinence
Featured Paper of the Month – April 2021 Published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging by John Fedota, Ph.D. and Thomas Ross, Ph.D., et al. in the NIDA IRP Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience of Addiction Section. Summary Quitting smoking is hard. This is largely due to the nicotine withdrawal syndrome. Withdrawal from cigarettes is… [Read More]
Dissecting the Role of GABA Neurons in the VTA versus SNr in Opioid Reward
Featured Paper of the Month – March 2021 Published in The Journal of Neuroscience by Ewa Galaj, Ph.D. Ph.D. and Zheng-Xiong Xi, M.D., Ph.D., et al. in the NIDA IRP Addiction Biology Unit. Summary Opioid reward has long been believed to be mediated by inhibition of VTA GABA interneurons that disinhibits DA neurons. In this… [Read More]
Novel Fluorescent Ligands Enable Single-Molecule Localization Microscopy of the Dopamine Transporter
Featured Paper of the Month – February 2021 The dopamine transporter (DAT) functions to control dopaminergic neurotransmission and is a target for therapeutic agents, including ADHD medications, as well as abused substances, such as cocaine. Here, we develop new fluorescently labeled ligands as promising new tools for studying DAT localization and regulation with single-molecule resolution…. [Read More]
