Sex differences in oscillatory signaling dynamics in the prelimbic cortex and nucleus accumbens core during negative affect.

Affective processing is important for guiding behavior and its dysfunction can lead to several psychiatric illnesses, including depression and substance use disorders. Conditioned taste aversion (CTA) is used to study learned shifts in affect, and taste reactivity (TR) can effectively track the hedonic properties of appetitive and aversive tastants before and after CTA. While the infralimbic cortex (IL) and its projections to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) shell play a key role in learned negative affect, this role is unique to males.

Molecular mechanisms underlying sex and treatment-dependent differences in an animal model of cue-exposure therapy for cocaine relapse prevention.

Environmental enrichment combined with the glycine transporter-1 inhibitor Org24598 (EE+ORG) during cocaine-cue extinction (EXT) inhibited reacquisition of 1.0 mg/kg cocaine self-administration in male but not female rats in a previous investigation. In this investigation, we determined if this treatment benefit in males required EXT training and ascertained the molecular basis for the observed sex difference in treatment efficacy.

Sex differences in the effects of a combined behavioral and pharmacological treatment strategy for cocaine relapse prevention in an animal model of cue exposure therapy.

Brief interventions of environmental enrichment (EE) or the glycine transporter-1 inhibitor Org24598 administered with cocaine-cue extinction training were shown previously to inhibit reacquisition of cocaine self-administration in male rats trained to self-administer a moderate 0.3 mg/kg dose of cocaine. Determining how EE and Org24598 synergize in combination in an animal model of cue exposure therapy is novel.