ArticleThe European journal of neuroscience2019
Heroin seeking becomes dependent on dorsal striatal dopaminergic mechanisms and can be decreased by N-acetylcysteine.
Article in The European journal of neuroscience, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers.
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Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 71 citations in OpenAlex.
- Can the incentive-sensitization theory of addiction incorporate addiction to opioid drugs?Psychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Incentive Cocaine-Seeking Habits and Their Compulsive Manifestation Emerge After a Downregulation of the Dopamine Transporter in Astrocytes Across Functional Domains of the Striatum.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
- Role of dorsal striatum circuits in relapse to opioid seeking after voluntary abstinence.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Article
- The Mechanism and Inflammatory Markers Involved in the Potential Use of N-acetylcysteine in Chronic Pain Management.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Disruption of positive- and negative-feature morphine interoceptive occasion setters by dopamine receptor agonism and antagonism in male and female rats.Psychopharmacology · 2024Article
- From compulsivity to compulsion: the neural basis of compulsive disorders.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2024Review
- L-NAC and L-NAC methyl ester prevent and overcome physical dependence to fentanyl in male rats.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The development of compulsive coping behavior depends on dorsolateral striatum dopamine-dependent mechanisms.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Article
- Article
- Pathways to the persistence of drug use despite its adverse consequences.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Review
- N-Acetylcysteine normalizes brain oxidative stress and neuroinflammation observed after protracted ethanol abstinence: a preclinical study in long-term ethanol-experienced male rats.Psychopharmacology · 2023Article
- Future Newborns with Opioid-Induced Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) Could Be Assessed with the Genetic Addiction Risk Severity (GARS) Test and Potentially Treated Using Precision Amino-Acid Enkephalinase Inhibition Therapy (KB220) as a Frontline Modality Instead of Potent Opioids.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Review
- Stress- and drug-induced neuroimmune signaling as a therapeutic target for comorbid anxiety and substance use disorders.Pharmacology & therapeutics · 2022Review
- Current and emerging pharmacotherapies for opioid dependence treatments in adults: a comprehensive update.Expert opinion on pharmacotherapy · 2022Review
- L-NAC reverses of the adverse effects of fentanyl infusion on ventilation and blood-gas chemistry.Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie · 2022Article
- The Potential of N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine (NAC) in the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders.CNS drugs · 2022Review
- Extrasynaptic therapeutic targets in substance use and stress disorders.Trends in pharmacological sciences · 2022Review
- Striatal resting-state connectivity after long-term diacetylmorphine treatment in opioid-dependent patients.Brain communications · 2022Article
- N-acetylcysteine in substance use disorder: a lesson from preclinical and clinical research.Pharmacological reports : PR · 2021Review
- Potential Involvement of a Substantia Nigra Circuit in Opioid Reinforcement.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The alarming increase in heroin overdoses in the USA is a reminder of the need for efficacious and novel treatments for opiate addiction. This may reflect the relatively poor understanding of the neural basis of heroin, as compared to cocaine, seeking behaviour. While cocaine reinforcement depends on the mesolimbic system, well-established cocaine seeking is dependent on dorsolateral striatum (aDLS) dopamine-dependent mechanisms which are disrupted by N-acetylcysteine, through normalisation of corticostriatal glutamate homeostasis. However, it is unknown whether a functional recruitment of aDLS dopamine-dependent control over instrumental responding also occurs for heroin seeking, even though heroin reinforcement does not depend on the mesolimbic dopamine system. Lister Hooded rats acquired heroin self-administration and were subsequently trained to seek heroin daily over prolonged periods of time under the control of drug-paired cues, as measured under a second-order schedule of reinforcement. At different stages of training, that is, early on and when heroin seeking behaviour was well established, we measured the sensitivity of drug-seeking responses to either bilateral aDLS infusions of the dopamine receptor antagonist α-flupenthixol (5, 10 and 15 μg/side) or systemic administration of N-acetylcysteine (30, 60 and 90 mg/kg). The results demonstrate that control over heroin seeking behaviour devolves to aDLS dopamine-dependent mechanisms after extended training. Further aDLS-dependent well-established, cue-controlled heroin seeking was disrupted by N-acetylcysteine. Comparison with previous data on cocaine suggests that the development of drug seeking habits and the alteration of corticostriatal glutamate homeostasis, which is restored by N-acetylcysteine, are quantitatively similar between heroin and cocaine.
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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.