Cocaine and chronic stress exposure produce an additive increase in neuronal activity in the basolateral amygdala.
Addict Biol
; 26(1): e12848, 2021 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-31750602
ABSTRACT
Cocaine addiction is a chronic, relapsing disorder. Stress and cues related to cocaine are two common relapse triggers. We have recently shown that exposure to repeated restraint stress during early withdrawal accelerates the time-dependent intensification or "incubation" of cue-induced cocaine craving that occurs during the first month of withdrawal, although craving ultimately plateaus at the same level observed in controls. These data indicate that chronic stress exposure during early withdrawal may result in increased vulnerability to cue-induced relapse during this period. Previous studies have shown that chronic stress exposure in drug-naïve rats increases neuronal activity in the basolateral amygdala (BLA), a region critical for behavioral responses to stress. Given that glutamatergic projections from the BLA to the nucleus accumbens are critical for the incubation of cue-induced cocaine craving, we hypothesized that cocaine withdrawal and chronic stress exposure produce separate increases that additively increase BLA neuronal activity. To assess this, we conducted in vivo extracellular single-unit recordings from the BLA of anesthetized adult male rats following cocaine or saline self-administration (6 h/day for 10 days) and repeated restraint stress or control conditions on withdrawal days (WD) 6-14. Recordings were conducted from WD15 to WD20. Interestingly, cocaine exposure alone increased the spontaneous firing rate in the BLA to levels observed following chronic stress exposure in drug-naïve rats. Chronic stress exposure during cocaine withdrawal further increased firing rate. These studies may identify a potential mechanism by which both cocaine and chronic stress exposure drive cue-induced relapse vulnerability during abstinence.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Stress, Psychological
/
Cocaine-Related Disorders
/
Basolateral Nuclear Complex
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Addict Biol
Journal subject:
TRANSTORNOS RELACIONADOS COM SUBSTANCIAS
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country: