Hypocretin receptor 1 knockdown in the ventral tegmental area attenuates mesolimbic dopamine signaling and reduces motivation for cocaine.

ABSTRACT: The hypocretin receptor 1 (HCRTr1) is a critical participant in the regulation of motivated behavior. Previous observations demonstrate that acute pharmacological blockade of HCRTr1 disrupts dopamine (DA) signaling and the motivation for cocaine when delivered systemically or directly into the ventral tegmental area (VTA). To further examine the involvement of HCRTr1 in regulating reward and reinforcement processing, we employed an adeno-associated virus to express a short hairpin RNA designed to knock down HCRTr1. We injected virus into the VTA and examined the effects of HCRTr1 knockdown on cocaine self-administration and DA signaling in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) core. We determined that the viral approach was effective at reducing HCRTr1 expression without affecting the expression of

SUBMITTER: Bernstein DL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5880744 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature