Cocaine Self-administration Regulates Transcription of Opioid Peptide Precursors and Opioid Receptors in Rat Caudate Putamen and Prefrontal Cortex.

ABSTRACT: The brain opioid system plays an important role in cocaine reward. Altered signaling in the opioid system by chronic cocaine exposure contributes to cocaine-seeking and taking behavior. The current study investigated concurrent changes in the gene expression of multiple components in rat brain opioid system following cocaine self-administration. Animals were limited to 40 infusions (1.5 mg/kg/infusion) within 6 h per day for five consecutive days. We then examined the mRNA levels of opioid receptors including mu (Oprm), delta (Oprd), and kappa (Oprk), and their endogenous opioid peptide precursors including proopiomelanocortin (Pomc), proenkephalin (Penk), prodynorphin (Pdyn) in the dorsal striatum (CPu) and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) 18 h after the last cocaine infusion. We found that co

SUBMITTER: Sun H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7484423 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature