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Striatal dopaminergic reward response relates to age of first drunkenness and feedback response in at-risk youth.

ABSTRACT: Dopamine receptor concentrations, primarily in the striatum, are hypothesized to contribute to a developmental imbalance between subcortical and prefrontal control systems in emerging adulthood potentially biasing motivation and increasing risky behaviors. Positron emission tomography studies have found significant reductions in striatal dopamine D2 receptors, and blunted amphetamine-induced dopamine release, in substance users compared with healthy controls. Extant literature is limited and inconsistent concerning vulnerability associated with having a family history of substance abuse (FH+). Some studies have reported familial liability associated with higher dopamine receptor levels, reduced dopamine response to stimulant challenges and decreased response to oral alcohol. However, other reports have failed to find group differences based on family history. We explored the interaction of familial liability and behavioral risk with multi-modal molecular and neural imaging of the dopaminergic system. Forty-four young adult male subjects performed monetary incentive delay tasks during both [11 C]raclopride positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. FH+ subjects were identified as low (n?=?24) or high risk (n?=?9) based on early initiation of drunkenness. FH+ high-risk subjects exhibited heightened striatal dopamine response to monetary reward but did not differ in neural activations compared with FH+ low risk subjects and controls with no familial loading (n?=?11). Across all subjects, a negative relationship was found between dopamine release and age of first drunkenness and a positive relationship with neural response to reward receipt. These results suggest that in at-risk individuals, higher dopamine transmission associated with monetary reward may represent a particularly useful neurobiological phenotype.

SUBMITTER: Weiland BJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4935649 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Striatal dopaminergic reward response relates to age of first drunkenness and feedback response in at-risk youth.

Weiland Barbara J BJ Zucker Robert A RA Zubieta Jon-Kar JK Heitzeg Mary M MM

Addiction biology 20160105 2

Dopamine receptor concentrations, primarily in the striatum, are hypothesized to contribute to a developmental imbalance between subcortical and prefrontal control systems in emerging adulthood potentially biasing motivation and increasing risky behaviors. Positron emission tomography studies have found significant reductions in striatal dopamine D2 receptors, and blunted amphetamine-induced dopamine release, in substance users compared with healthy controls. Extant literature is limited and inc ...[more]

PMID: 26732626

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Project description:ObjectiveMajor depressive disorder is characterized by reduced reward-related striatal activation and dysfunctional reward learning, putatively reflecting decreased dopaminergic signaling. The goal of this study was to test whether a pharmacological challenge designed to facilitate dopaminergic transmission can enhance striatal responses to reward and improve reward learning in depressed individuals.MethodIn a double-blind placebo-controlled design, 46 unmedicated depressed participants and 43 healthy control participants were randomly assigned to receive either placebo or a single low dose (50 mg) of the D2/D3 receptor antagonist amisulpride, which is believed to increase dopamine signaling through presynaptic autoreceptor blockade. To investigate the effects of increased dopaminergic transmission on reward-related striatal function and behavior, a monetary incentive delay task (in conjunction with functional MRI) and a probabilistic reward learning task were administered at absorption peaks of amisulpride.ResultsDepressed participants selected previously rewarded stimuli less frequently than did control participants, indicating reduced reward learning, but this effect was not modulated by amisulpride. Relative to depressed participants receiving placebo (and control participants receiving amisulpride), depressed participants receiving amisulpride exhibited increased striatal activation and potentiated corticostriatal functional connectivity between the nucleus accumbens and the midcingulate cortex in response to monetary rewards. Stronger corticostriatal connectivity in response to rewards predicted better reward learning among depressed individuals receiving amisulpride as well as among control participants receiving placebo.ConclusionsAcute enhancement of dopaminergic transmission potentiated reward-related striatal activation and corticostriatal functional connectivity in depressed individuals but had no behavioral effects. Taken together, the results suggest that targeted pharmacological treatments may normalize neural correlates of reward processing in depression; despite such acute effects on neural function, behavioral modification may require more chronic exposure. This is consistent with previous reports that antidepressant effects of amisulpride in depression emerged after sustained administration.

Project description:BackgroundMicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that recognize sites of complementarity of target messenger RNAs, resulting in transcriptional regulation and translational repression of target genes. In Huntington's disease (HD), a neurodegenerative disease caused by a trinucleotide repeat expansion, miRNA dyregulation has been reported, which may impact gene expression and modify the progression and severity of HD.MethodsWe performed next-generation miRNA sequence analysis in prefrontal cortex (Brodmann Area 9) from 26 HD, 2 HD gene positive, and 36 control brains. Neuropathological information was available for all HD brains, including age at disease onset, CAG-repeat size, Vonsattel grade, and Hadzi-Vonsattel striatal and cortical scores, a continuous measure of the extent of neurodegeneration. Linear models were performed to examine the relationship of miRNA expression to these clinical features, and messenger RNA targets of associated miRNAs were tested for gene ontology term enrichment.ResultsWe identified 75 miRNAs differentially expressed in HD brain (FDR q-value <0.05). Among the HD brains, nine miRNAs were significantly associated with Vonsattel grade of neuropathological involvement and three of these, miR-10b-5p, miR-10b-3p, and miR-302a-3p, significantly related to the Hadzi-Vonsattel striatal score (a continuous measure of striatal involvement) after adjustment for CAG length. Five miRNAs (miR-10b-5p, miR-196a-5p, miR-196b-5p, miR-10b-3p, and miR-106a-5p) were identified as having a significant relationship to CAG length-adjusted age of onset including miR-10b-5p, the mostly strongly over-expressed miRNA in HD cases. Although prefrontal cortex was the source of tissue profiled in these studies, the relationship of miR-10b-5p expression to striatal involvement in the disease was independent of cortical involvement. Correlation of miRNAs to the clinical features clustered by direction of effect and the gene targets of the observed miRNAs showed association to processes relating to nervous system development and transcriptional regulation.ConclusionsThese results demonstrate that miRNA expression in cortical BA9 provides insight into striatal involvement and support a role for these miRNAs, particularly miR-10b-5p, in HD pathogenicity. The miRNAs identified in our studies of postmortem brain tissue may be detectable in peripheral fluids and thus warrant consideration as accessible biomarkers for disease stage, rate of progression, and other important clinical characteristics of HD.

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Striatal dopaminergic reward response relates to age of first drunkenness and feedback response in at-risk youth.

Publications

Striatal dopaminergic reward response relates to age of first drunkenness and feedback response in at-risk youth.

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