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Neural plasticity and addiction: PI3-kinase and cocaine behavioral sensitization
Emanuela Izzo1, Rémi Martin-Fardon, George F Koob
1Department of Neuropharmacology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 N. Torrey Pines Rd., CVN12, La Jolla, California 92103, USA.
Nature Neuroscience
|November 19, 2002
Abstract:
Drug addiction has been linked to protracted functional changes in neural circuits involved in motivation that can lead to drug dependence, craving and relapse. Here we investigated the role of the phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase (PI3K) signal transduction pathway in long-lasting behavioral sensitization to cocaine in rats, an animal model of the long-lasting functional changes induced by repeated drug use. Our results show that PI3K is required for the expression, but not the induction, of behavioral sensitization to cocaine.