ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2011
Heroin relapse requires long-term potentiation-like plasticity mediated by NMDA2b-containing receptors.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 138 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
138 citing papers in PubMed, 180 citations in OpenAlex.
- Synaptic plasticity in cocaine-seeking ensembles of the nucleus accumbens core.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- An evaluation of N-acetylcysteine in a sequential oxycodone and cocaine rat self-administration model.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- The neuroimmune-glutamate hypothesis of addiction.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- Uncovering phenotypic diversity and cell-type-specific prefrontal cortex calcium dynamics in rat fentanyl self-administration.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cornichon Homolog-3 (Cnih3) deletion impairs spatial memory, operant learning, and fentanyl self-administration behavior.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Remifentanil self-administration promotes circuit- and sex-specific adaptations within the prefrontal-accumbens pathways.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Mu-opioid and nociceptin receptors show divergent, cell-type-specific actions in the mesocorticolimbic reward system in opioid use disorder.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2026Review
- Remifentanil self-administration promotes circuit- and sex-specific adaptations within the prefrontal-accumbens pathways.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2026Article
- From Stress to Substance Use Disorders: The Expanding Role of Microglia-Astrocyte Crosstalk in Neuroimmune and Glutamate Alterations in the Nucleus Accumbens.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Chemogenetic Inhibition and Optogenetic Depotentiation of the Prelimbic Cortex to Paraventricular Thalamus Pathway Attenuate Abstinence-Induced Plasticity and Heroin Seeking in Rats.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Crosstalk Between Glycinergic and N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor-Mediated Glutamatergic Transmission in Behaviours Associated with Opioid Use Disorder.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Prelimbic cortex to ventral tegmental area projection regulates early social isolation stress-potentiated heroin seeking in mice.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Functional and Structural Plasticity in Cocaine-Seeking Ensembles of the Nucleus Accumbens Core.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Multi-omics Analysis Reveals miR-7220-5p Alleviates NThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Opioid-Induced Regulation of Cortical Circular-International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Targeting Neuroplasticity in Substance Use Disorders: Implications for Therapeutics.Annual review of pharmacology and toxicology · 2025Review
- The single-cell opioid responses in the context of HIV (SCORCH) consortium.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- The Role of Acid-Sensing Ion Channel 1A (ASIC1A) in the Behavioral and Synaptic Effects of Oxycodone and Other Opioids.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Enhancing translation: A need to leverage complex preclinical models of addictive drugs to accelerate substance use treatment options.Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior · 2024Review
- Corticostriatal ensemble dynamics across heroin self-administration to reinstatement.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
78 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Persistent relapse to addictive drugs constitutes the most challenging problem in addiction therapy, and is linked to impaired prefrontal cortex regulation of motivated behaviors involving the nucleus accumbens. Using a rat model of heroin addiction, we show that relapse requires long-term potentiation (LTP)-like increases in synaptic strength in the prefrontal cortex projection to the nucleus accumbens. The increased synaptic strength was paralleled by dendritic spine enlargement in accumbens spiny neurons and required up-regulated surface expression of NMDA2b-containing receptors (NR2B). Accordingly, blocking NR2B before reinstating heroin-seeking prevented the induction of LTP-like changes in spine remodeling and synaptic strength, and inhibited heroin relapse. These data show that LTP-like neuroplasticity in prefrontal-accumbens synapses is initiated by NR2B stimulation and strongly contributes to heroin relapse. Moreover, the data reveal NR2B-containing NMDA receptors as a previously unexplored therapeutic target for treating heroin addiction.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.