Corticosterone regulates both naturally occurring and cocaine-induced dopamine signaling by selectively decreasing dopamine uptake.

ABSTRACT: Stressful and aversive events promote maladaptive reward-seeking behaviors such as drug addiction by acting, in part, on the mesolimbic dopamine system. Using animal models, data from our laboratory and others show that stress and cocaine can interact to produce a synergistic effect on reward circuitry. This effect is also observed when the stress hormone corticosterone is administered directly into the nucleus accumbens (NAc), indicating that glucocorticoids act locally in dopamine terminal regions to enhance cocaine's effects on dopamine signaling. However, prior studies in behaving animals have not provided mechanistic insight. Using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, we examined the effect of systemic corticosterone on spontaneous dopamine release events (transients) in the NAc core and she

SUBMITTER: Wheeler DS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5704943 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature