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]
Featured Paper of the Month
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]
Compulsive methamphetamine taking induces autophagic and apoptotic markers in the rat dorsal striatum
Featured Paper of the Month – January 2021 The use of methamphetamine (METH) is very prevalent throughout the world. METH can cause anxiety, psychosis, seizures, and death. Previous research in the Cadet Lab has shown that METH can cause neurodegeneration when the drug is injected by investigators. It was therefore important to find out if… [Read More]
Exception That Proves the Rule: Investigation of Privileged Stereochemistry in Designing Dopamine D3R Bitopic Agonists
Featured Paper of the Month – December 2020 In this study, starting from our highly selective and potent D3R agonist 5 , we further investigated the chemical space around the linker portion of the molecule, via insertion of a hydroxyl substituent and ring-expansion of the trans cyclopropyl moiety into a trans -cyclohexyl scaffold. Moreover, inspired… [Read More]
