Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Shen H
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3228456 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Shen Haowei H Moussawi Khaled K Zhou Wenhua W Toda Shigenobu S Kalivas Peter W PW
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20111114 48
Persistent relapse to addictive drugs constitutes the most challenging problem in addiction therapy, and is linked to impaired prefrontal cortex regulation of motivated behaviors involving the nucleus accumbens. Using a rat model of heroin addiction, we show that relapse requires long-term potentiation (LTP)-like increases in synaptic strength in the prefrontal cortex projection to the nucleus accumbens. The increased synaptic strength was paralleled by dendritic spine enlargement in accumbens s ...[more]