The Impact of Heroin Self-Administration and Environmental Enrichment on Ventral Tegmental CRF1 Receptor Expression.

Background: There is a strong link between chronic stress and vulnerability to drug abuse and addiction. Corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) is central to the stress response that contributes to continuation and relapse to heroin abuse. Chronic heroin exposure can exacerbate CRF production, leading to dysregulation of the midbrain CRF-dopamine-glutamate interaction.

Environmental enrichment facilitates electric barrier induced heroin abstinence after incubation of craving in male and female rats.

Background: Treatment strategies that aim to promote abstinence to heroin use and reduce vulnerability to drug-use resumption are limited in sustainability and long-term efficacy. We have previously shown that environmental enrichment (EE), when implemented after drug self-administration, reduces drug-seeking and promotes abstinence to cocaine and heroin in male rats. Here, we tested the effects of EE on abstinence in an animal conflict model in males and females, and after periods where incubation of craving may occur.

Muscarinic and NMDA Receptors in the Substantia Nigra Play a Role in Reward-Related Learning.

Background: Reward-related learning, where animals form associations between rewards and stimuli (i.e., conditioned stimuli [CS]) that predict or accompany those rewards, is an essential adaptive function for survival.

Comparative hybridization protocols in zebrafish.

hybridization is a commonly used technique in molecular biology to assess the temporal and spatial expression of a given gene. As a long and labor-intensive protocol, double hybridization, which detects two genes in series, is challenging and can require a lot of troubleshooting. Optional additives, polyvinyl alcohol and dextran sulfate, were tested in a standard hybridization protocol and several colorimetric stain pairings using double hybridization in zebrafish embryos.