Inhibition of a cortico-thalamic circuit attenuates cue-induced reinstatement of drug-seeking behavior in "relapse prone" male rats

© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature..

RATIONALE: Relapse often occurs when individuals are exposed to stimuli or cues previously associated with the drug-taking experience. The ability of drug cues to trigger relapse is believed to be a consequence of incentive salience attribution, a process by which the incentive value of reward is transferred to the reward-paired cue. Sign-tracker (ST) rats that attribute enhanced incentive value to reward cues are more prone to relapse compared to goal-tracker (GT) rats that primarily attribute predictive value to such cues.

OBJECTIVES: The neurobiological mechanisms underlying this individual variation in relapse propensity remains largely unexplored. The paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) has been identified as a critical node in the regulation of cue-elicited behaviors in STs and GTs, including cue-induced reinstatement of drug-seeking behavior. Here we used a chemogenetic approach to assess whether "top-down" cortical input from the prelimbic cortex (PrL) to the PVT plays a role in mediating individual differences in relapse propensity.

RESULTS: Chemogenetic inhibition of the PrL-PVT pathway selectively decreased cue-induced reinstatement of drug-seeking behavior in STs, without affecting behavior in GTs. In contrast, cocaine-primed drug-seeking behavior was not affected in either phenotype. Furthermore, when rats were characterized based on a different behavioral phenotype-locomotor response to novelty-inhibition of the PrL-PVT pathway had no effect on either cue- or drug-induced reinstatement.

CONCLUSIONS: These results highlight an important role for the PrL-PVT pathway in vulnerability to relapse that is consequent to individual differences in the propensity to attribute incentive salience to discrete reward cues.

Errataetall:

ErratumIn: Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2021 Jul 21;:. - PMID 34286346

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2022

Erschienen:

2022

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:239

Enthalten in:

Psychopharmacology - 239(2022), 4 vom: 10. Apr., Seite 1035-1051

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Kuhn, Brittany N [VerfasserIn]
Campus, Paolo [VerfasserIn]
Klumpner, Marin S [VerfasserIn]
Chang, Stephen E [VerfasserIn]
Iglesias, Amanda G [VerfasserIn]
Flagel, Shelly B [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Cocaine
Goal-tracker
Incentive salience
Individual variation
Journal Article
Paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus
Prelimbic cortex
Relapse
Sign-tracker

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 08.04.2022

Date Revised 17.06.2022

published: Print-Electronic

ErratumIn: Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2021 Jul 21;:. - PMID 34286346

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1007/s00213-021-05894-9

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM327280700