Activation of GABAergic Neurons in the Nucleus Accumbens Mediates the Expression of Cocaine-Associated Memory

Cocaine-associated environmental cues elicit craving and relapse to cocaine use by recalling the rewarding memory of cocaine. However, the neuronal mechanisms underlying the expression of cocaine-associated memory are not fully understood. Here, we investigated the possible contribution of γ-aminobu...

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Published in:Biological & pharmaceutical bulletin 2018/07/01, Vol.41(7), pp.1084-1088
Main Authors: Zhang, Tong, Deyama, Satoshi, Domoto, Masaki, Wada, Shintaro, Yanagida, Junko, Sasase, Hitoki, Hinoi, Eiichi, Nishitani, Naoya, Nagayasu, Kazuki, Kaneko, Shuji, Kaneda, Katsuyuki
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activation
Animal behavior
Clozapine
Cocaine
conditioned place preference
Conditioning
Depolarization
designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs
Drug abuse
Drug addiction
Mice
mouse
Neurons
Nucleus accumbens
Place preference conditioning
Viruses
γ-aminobutyrate (GABA)
γ-Aminobutyric acid
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Summary:Cocaine-associated environmental cues elicit craving and relapse to cocaine use by recalling the rewarding memory of cocaine. However, the neuronal mechanisms underlying the expression of cocaine-associated memory are not fully understood. Here, we investigated the possible contribution of γ-aminobutyrate (GABA)ergic neurons in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a key brain region associated with the rewarding and reinforcing effects of cocaine, to the expression of cocaine-associated memory using the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm combined with designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADD) technology. The inhibitory DREADD hM4Di was selectively expressed in NAc GABAergic neurons of vesicular GABA transporter-Cre (vGAT-Cre) mice by infusing adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors. Ex vivo electrophysiological recordings revealed that bath application of clozapine-N-oxide (CNO) significantly hyperpolarized membrane potentials and reduced the number of spikes induced by depolarizing current injections in hM4Di-positive NAc neurons. Additionally, systemic CNO injections into cocaine-conditioned mice 30 min before posttest session significantly reduced CPP scores compared to saline-injected mice. These results indicate that chemogenetic inhibition of NAc GABAergic neurons attenuated the expression of cocaine CPP, suggesting that NAc GABAergic neuronal activation is required for the environmental context-induced expression of cocaine-associated memory.
ISSN:0918-6158
1347-5215
DOI:10.1248/bpb.b18-00221