Carl G Litif, Levi T Flom, Kathryn L Sandum, Skylar L Hodgins, Lucio Vaccaro, Jerry A Stitzel, Nicolas A Blouin, Maria Constanza Mannino, Jason P Gigley, Todd Schoborg, Ana-Clara Bobadilla
Maladaptive reward seeking is a hallmark of cocaine use disorder. To develop therapeutic targets, it is critical to understand the neurobiological changes specific to cocaine-seeking without altering the seeking of natural rewards, e.g., sucrose. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the nucleus accumbens core (NAcore) are known regions associated with cocaine- and sucrose-seeking ensembles, i.e., a sparse population of co-activated neurons. Within ensembles, transcriptomic alterations in the PFC and NAcore underlie the learning and persistence of cocaine- and sucrose-seeking behavior...
November 5, 2023: bioRxiv