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Investigating Drivers of Antireward in Addiction Behavior with Anatomically Specific Single-Cell Gene Expression Methods
Published on: August 4, 2022
Neuroscience of opiates for addiction medicine: From stress-responsive systems to behavior
1The Laboratory of the Biology of Addictive Diseases, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA.
Abstract:
Opiate addiction, similarly to addiction to other psychoactive drugs, is chronic relapsing brain disease caused by drug-induced short-term and long-term neuroadaptations at the molecular, cellular, and behavioral levels. Preclinical research in laboratory animals has found important interactions between opiate exposure and stress-responsive systems. In this review, we will discuss the dysregulation of several stress-responsive systems in opiate addiction: vasopressin and its receptor system, endogenous opioid systems (including proopiomelanocortin/mu opioid receptor and dynorphin/kappa opioid receptor), orexin and its receptor system, and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. A more complete understanding of how opiates alter these stress systems, through further laboratory-based studies, is required to identify novel and effective pharmacological targets for the long-term treatment of heroin addiction.
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