A new automated 3D detection of synaptic contacts reveals the formation of cortico-striatal synapses upon cocaine treatment in vivo.

Addiction can be considered as a form of neuronal adaptation within the reward circuitry. Upon psychostimulant administration, long-term behavioral adaptations are associated with synaptic plasticity and morphological changes of medium spiny neurons (MSN) from the striatum. Increased spine density onto MSN in response to chronic cocaine exposure in mice has been described for more than a decade, but no evidence indicates that these newly formed spines establish connections.