Dopamine signatures of excessive and compulsive cocaine and fentanyl use.

ABSTRACT: Excessive and compulsive drug use despite adverse consequences is a hallmark of substance use disorder, yet individuals differ markedly in their vulnerability to develop these behaviors. Drugs of abuse are long known to alter endogenous dopamine (DA) signaling, but shared principles for how DA dynamics impact compulsive use among individuals and across drug classes are lacking. Here, we monitored DA release in the medial shell of nucleus accumbens (NAc) during cocaine and fentanyl self-administration, with or without coincident punishment, in large cohorts of mice. Contingent cocaine and fentanyl self-administration evoked complex and individually distinct DA dynamics; nevertheless, a robust negative correlation held across both drugs, such that high takers exhibited lower drug-evoked DA s

SUBMITTER: Chen K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12871853 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature