Kappa opioid receptor activation potentiates the cocaine-induced increase in evoked dopamine release recorded in vivo in the mouse nucleus accumbens.

ABSTRACT: Behavioral stressors increase addiction risk in humans and increase the rewarding valence of drugs of abuse including cocaine, nicotine and ethanol in animal models. Prior studies have established that this potentiation of drug reward was mediated by stress-induced release of the endogenous dynorphin opioids and subsequent kappa opioid receptor (KOR) activation. In this study, we used in vivo fast scan cyclic voltammetry to test the hypothesis that KOR activation before cocaine administration might potentiate the evoked release of dopamine from ventral tegmental (VTA) synaptic inputs to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and thereby increase the rewarding valence of cocaine. The KOR agonist U50488 inhibited dopamine release evoked by either medial forebrain bundle (MFB) or pedunculopontine tegmen

SUBMITTER: Ehrich JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4229575 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature