Hot Off the Press – November 5, 2021 We recently introduced a rat model of incubation (time-dependent increase) of oxycodone craving after voluntary abstinence induced by negative consequences of drug seeking. We used resting-state functional MRI to determine whether longitudinal functional connectivity changes in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) circuits would predict incubation of oxycodone seeking after… [Read More]
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Sex differences in the effect of chronic delivery of the buprenorphine analog BU08028 on heroin relapse and choice in a rat model of opioid maintenance
Hot Off the Press – October 12, 2021 Previous studies reported that the NOP/µ receptor partial agonist BU08028 produced antinociception in rodents and non-human primates and is not self-administered by non-human primates, leading to the suggestion that BU08028 can be a promising candidate for opioid addiction treatment. In a buprenorphine-validated rat model of opioid agonist… [Read More]
The protective effect of operant social reward on cocaine self-administration, choice, and relapse is dependent on delay and effort for the social reward
Hot Off the Press – August 24, 2021 In humans who use addictive drugs, social-reinforcement-based treatments can protect against drug use and relapse, but not in all patients. We used a new operant rat model that mimics features of one such treatment, the community-reinforcement approach; having previously shown that rats choose social reinforcement over heroin… [Read More]
Inactivation of the infralimbic cortex decreases discriminative stimulus-controlled relapse to cocaine seeking in rats
Hot Off the Press – July 7, 2021 Published in Neuropsychopharmacology by Rajtarun Madangopal and Bruce Hope, et al. in the NIDA IRP Neuronal Ensembles in Drug Addiction Section. Discriminative stimuli (DSs) play an important and understudied role in the persistent susceptibility to drug relapse. They signal drug availability (DS+) or unavailability (DS-) and control… [Read More]
An excitatory lateral hypothalamic circuit orchestrating pain behaviors in mice
Hot Off the Press – June 7, 2021 Published in eLife by Justin Siemian and Yeka Aponte, et al. in the NIDA IRP Neuronal Circuits and Behavior Unit. Decades of work have revealed the lateral hypothalamus (LH) as a crucial region for orchestrating appetitive and reward-related behaviors. However, the contributions of genetically-identified lateral hypothalamic neurons to other… [Read More]
A target-agnostic screen identifies approved drugs to stabilize the endoplasmic reticulum-resident proteome
Hot Off the Press – April 30, 2021 Published in Cell Reports by Mark Henderson and Kathleen Trychta, et al. In the paper by Henderson et al., we developed a high throughput screen to identify molecules that can stabilize protein homeostasis inside of cells (brain, muscle, liver, etc) during pathological states. The screen was based… [Read More]
Ketogenic Diet Reduces Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms in Humans and Alcohol Intake in Rodents
Hot Off the Press – April 26, 2021 Published in Science Advances by Corinde Wiers and Leandro Vendruscolo, et al. Previous studies reported that people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) use less glucose and more acetate as a source of energy in the brain. This is because alcohol is broken down by the liver into… [Read More]
Past experience shapes the neural circuits recruited for future learning
Hot Off the Press – February 18, 2021 Past is prologue, at least that is the saying. Yet modern behavioral neuroscience, particularly in animals, strives to minimize the effect of past experience, using young and typically naïve subjects for testing. This is done in an effort to understand brain function without the confounding effects of… [Read More]
Sigma-1 receptor chaperones rescue nucleocytoplasmic transport deficit seen in cellular and Drosophila ALS/FTD models
Hot Off the Press – February 9, 2021 A receptor called the sigma-1 receptor, which was discovered at NIDA IRP, plays an important role in regulating the cargo transport between the cellular nucleus and cytoplasm that is dysfunctional in neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The authors demonstrate and validate… [Read More]
Evolving schema representations in orbitofrontal ensembles during learning
Hot Off the Press – January 3, 2021 Learning what to learn about and generalizing from one situation to another is arguably one of the most fundamental abilities that distinguishes higher intelligence. The effects of the resultant schemas can be seen in simple motor or sensory processing, in which learning one skill facilitates acquisition of… [Read More]
