Counterconditioning During Reconsolidation Prevents Relapse of Cocaine Memories.

ABSTRACT: Relapse to drug abuse is often caused by exposure to drug-associated cues that evoke craving. Therefore, disruption of the cue-drug memory can prevent relapse. Memories destabilize and become temporarily labile upon their retrieval, and re-stabilize in a process termed reconsolidation. Pharmacological disruption of reconsolidation prevents relapse in animal models, yet may evoke side effects. Therefore, behavioral procedures capable of preventing cue-induced craving and relapse are extremely valuable. Aversion therapies, in which drug-paired cues are re-associated (counterconditioned) with aversive consequences, have limited success, because the previous cue-drug memory may recover, triggering relapse. Here, we prevented the memory recovery and relapse to cocaine seeking by applying aversi

SUBMITTER: Goltseker K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5240172 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature