Featured Research Papers

February's Featured Paper!

PNAS Published online before print, October 8, 2012, doi:10.1073/pnas.1205297109

Rui Song, Hai-Ying Zhang, Xia Li, Guo-Hua Bi, Eliot L. Gardner, and Zheng-Xiong Xi

Neuroimaging studies using positron emission tomography suggest that reduced dopamine D2 receptor availability in the neostriatum is associated with increased vulnerability to drug addiction in humans and experimental animals. The role of D3 receptors (D3Rs) in the neurobiology of addiction remains unclear, however. Herewereport that D3R KO (D3 ^-/-) mice display enhanced cocaine self-administration and enhanced motivation for cocaine-taking and cocaine-seeking behavior. This increased vulnerability to cocaine is accompanied by decreased dopamine response to cocaine secondary to increased basal levels of extracellular dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, suggesting a compensatory response to decreased cocaine reward in D3 ^-/- mice. In addition, D3 ^-/-| mice also display up-regulation of dopamine transporters in the striatum, suggesting a neuroadaptative attempt to normalize elevated basal extracellular dopamine. These findings suggest that D3R deletion increases vulnerability to cocaine, and that reducedD3R availability in the brainmay constitute a risk factor for the development of cocaine addiction.

You can read more about this paper at the website for PNAS.