Pier Vincenzo Piazza

Distinct functions of the two isoforms of dopamine D2 receptors

Signalling through dopamine D2 receptors governs physiological functions related to locomotion, hormone production and drug abuse. D2 receptors are also known targets of antipsychotic drugs that are used to treat neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. By a mechanism of alternative splicing, the D2 receptor gene encodes two molecularly distinct isoforms, D2S and D2L, previously thought to have the same function. Here we show that these receptors have distinct functions in vivo; D2L acts mainly at postsynaptic sites and D2S serves presynaptic autoreceptor functions. The cataleptic effects of the widely used antipsychotic haloperidol are absent in D2L-deficient mice. This suggests that D2L is targeted by haloperidol, with implications for treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. The absence of D2L reveals that D2S inhibits D1 receptor-mediated functions, uncovering a circuit of signalling interference between dopamine receptors.

Maternal Glucocorticoid Secretion Mediates Long-Term Effects of Prenatal Stress

There is growing evidence that stressors occurring during pregnancy can impair biological and behavioral adaptation to stress in the adult offspring. Mechanisms by which stress in the pregnant rat can influence development of the offspring are still unknown. In the present study, we investigated the involvement of maternal corticosterone secretion during pregnancy on the hypothalamo–pituitary–adrenal axis activity of adult offspring. We investigated stress-induced corticosterone secretion and hippocampal type I and type II corticosteroid receptors in male adult rats submitted to prenatal stress born to either mothers with intact corticosterone secretion or mothers in which stress-induced corticosterone secretion was blocked by adrenalectomy with substitutive corticosterone therapy. Repeated restraint during the last week of pregnancy was used as prenatal stressor. Furthermore, the specific role of an injection of corticosterone before the restraint stress on adrenalectomized mothers with substitutive corticosterone treatment was also studied. We report here that blockade of the mother’s stress-induced glucocorticoid secretion suppresses the prolonged stress-induced corticosteroid response and the decrease in type I hippocampal corticosteroid receptors usually observed in prenatally stressed adults. Conversely, corticosterone administered during stress, to mothers in which corticosterone secretion is blocked, reinstates the effects of prenatal stress. These results suggest for the first time that stress-induced increases in maternal glucocorticoids may be a mechanism by which prenatal stress impairs the development of the adult offspring’s glucocorticoid response.

Stress- and pharmacologically-induced behavioral sensitization increases vulnerability to acquisition of amphetamine self-administration

Individual vulnerability to drug addiction may be an important factor in the prognosis of this pathological behavior in man. However, experimental investigations have largely neglected the psychobiological substrate of predisposition to addiction. In this study, we show using a self-administration (SA) acquisition paradigm that previous repeated exposure to a stressful experience (tail-pinch) or to amphetamine, increase the locomotor response to this drug (behavioral sensitization) and enhance vulnerability to acquire amphetamine SA. These results show that vulnerability to develop amphetamine SA may be influenced by stressful experiences, and that previous contact with the drug may enhance a predisposition to amphetamine-taking behavior. As tail-pinch and amphetamine sensitization affect both the dopamine (DA) neural system and the propensity to self-administer amphetamine (behavior also modulated by DA activity), stress may influence SA via an action on the DA system.

Spatial Relational Memory Requires Hippocampal Adult Neurogenesis

The dentate gyrus of the hippocampus is one of the few regions of the mammalian brain where new neurons are generated throughout adulthood. This adult neurogenesis has been proposed as a novel mechanism that mediates spatial memory. However, data showing a causal relationship between neurogenesis and spatial memory are controversial. Here, we developed an inducible transgenic strategy allowing specific ablation of adult-born hippocampal neurons. This resulted in an impairment of spatial relational memory, which supports a capacity for flexible, inferential memory expression. In contrast, less complex forms of spatial knowledge were unaltered. These findings demonstrate that adult-born neurons are necessary for complex forms of hippocampus-mediated learning.

Interaction between glucocorticoid hormones, stress and psychostimulant drugs*

In this review we summarize data obtained from animal studies showing that glucocorticoid hormones have a facilitatory role on behavioural responses to psychostimulant drugs such as locomotor activity, self‐administration and relapse. These behavioural effects of glucocorticoids involve an action on the meso‐accumbens dopamine system, one of the major systems mediating the addictive properties of drugs of abuse. The effects of glucocorticoids in the nucleus accumbens are site‐specific; these hormones modify dopamine transmission in only the shell of this nucleus without modifying it in the core. Studies with corticosteroid receptor antagonists suggest that the dopaminergic effects of these hormones depend mostly on glucocorticoid, not on mineralocorticoid receptors. These data suggest that an increase in glucocorticoid hormones, through an action on mesolimbic dopamine neurons, could increase vulnerability to drug abuse. We also discuss the implications of this finding with respect to the physiological role of glucocorticoids. It is proposed that an increase in glucocorticoids, by activating the reward pathway, could counteract the aversive effects of stress. During chronic stress, repeated increases in glucocorticoids and dopamine would result in sensitization of the reward system. This sensitized state, which can persist after the end of the stress, would render the subject more responsive to drugs of abuse and consequently more vulnerable to the development of addiction.

Glucocorticoids as a biological substrate of reward: physiological and pathophysiological implications.

The observations presented in this review suggest that glucocorticoids are one of the biological substrates of reward. These hormones are secreted in response to rewarding stimuli, such as food, a receptive sexual partner or drugs of abuse. Furthermore, manipulations of the secretion of glucocorticoids modify reward-related behaviours, and administration of these hormones, in the range of physiological stress levels, has positive reinforcing effects. The rewarding effects of glucocorticoids are probably mediated by a glucocorticoid-induced stimulation of the mesencephalic dopaminergic transmission, one of the principal neural substrates of reward. It is proposed that the rewarding effects of glucocorticoids play the role of counteracting the aversive effects of external aggressions, allowing a better coping with threatening situations. However, a sustained increase in the secretion of these hormones, or an hypersensitivity to their rewarding effects, could determine reward-related pathologies, such as a predisposed state to develop drug-abuse. In conclusion, through their reward-related effects, glucocorticoids may play a key role in tuning adaptation to stress and in determining reward-related behavioral pathologies.

Dopaminergic activity is reduced in the prefrontal cortex and increased in the nucleus accumbens of rats predisposed to develop amphetamine self-administration

Individual vulnerability to the reinforcing effects of drugs appear to be a crucial factor in the development of addiction in humans. In the rat, individuals at risk for psychostimulant self-administration (SA) may be identified from their locomotor reactivity to a stress situation such as exposure to a novel environment. Animals with higher locomotor responses to novelty (High Responders, HR) tend to acquire amphetamine SA, while animals with the lower responses (Low Responders, LR) do not. In this study, we examined whether activity of dopaminergic (DA) and serotoninergic (5-HT) systems differed between HR and LR animals. These transmitter systems are thought to be involved in the reinforcing effects of psychostimulants. Animals from both groups were sacrificed under basal conditions and after exposure for 30 or 120 min to a novel environment, and the DA, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC), 5-HT, and 5-hydroxyindolacetic acid (5-HIAA) contents were determined in the prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens and striatum. The HR rats displayed a specific neurochemical pattern: a higher DOPAC/DA ratio in the nucleus accumbens and striatum and a lower one in the prefrontal cortex. Furthermore, HR animals had lower overall 5-HT and 5-HIAA levels, corresponding to the mean of these compounds for the three structures studied over the three environmental conditions.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Increased locomotor response to novelty and propensity to intravenous amphetamine self-administration in adult offspring of stressed mothers.

It is suggested that drug addiction is more likely to develop in individuals who are particularly sensitive to the reinforcing effects of drugs. Animal studies of intravenous drug self-administration (SA) have shown that rats display a large range of individual differences in the propensity to develop drug-seeking. Predisposed animals are characterized by a higher locomotor reactivity to both novelty and psychostimulants. In this report, we show that prenatal stress (restraint of the mother during the last week of pregnancy) may contribute to an individuals vulnerability to develop amphetamine self-administration. The adult offspring of stressed mothers exhibited: (i) a higher locomotor response to novelty and to an injection of amphetamine (0.3 mg/kg, i.v.); (ii) a higher level of amphetamine self-administration. The data indicate that individual predisposition to drug-seeking in the adult may be induced by prenatal events.

Transition to Addiction Is Associated with a Persistent Impairment in Synaptic Plasticity

Addicts Lose Plasticity What are the biological mechanisms associated with the transition from occasional drug use to addiction? In rats, like in humans, even after a prolonged period of drug intake, only a limited number of animals develop addiction-like behavior despite the amount of drug taken by all subjects being the same. Kasanetz et al. (p. 1709) compared the expression of N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA)–dependent long-term depression (NMDA-LTD) in the nucleus accumbens of addicted and nonaddicted rats. Initially, once drug self-administration had been learned and consolidated, but before the appearance of addiction-like behavior, LTD was suppressed in all animals independently of their vulnerability to addiction at a later stage. However, after 2 months, when addiction-like behavior appears, LTD was persistently lost in the addicted animals. In contrast, normal NMDA-LTD reappeared in animals that maintained a controlled drug intake without becoming addicted. Loss of glutamate receptor–dependent synaptic plasticity in the brain is associated with the transition to cocaine addiction. Chronic exposure to drugs of abuse induces countless modifications in brain physiology. However, the neurobiological adaptations specifically associated with the transition to addiction are unknown. Cocaine self-administration rapidly suppresses long-term depression (LTD), an important form of synaptic plasticity in the nucleus accumbens. Using a rat model of addiction, we found that animals that progressively develop the behavioral hallmarks of addiction have permanently impaired LTD, whereas LTD is progressively recovered in nonaddicted rats maintaining a controlled drug intake. By making drug seeking consistently resistant to modulation by environmental contingencies and consequently more and more inflexible, a persistently impaired LTD could mediate the transition to addiction.

Higher and longer stress-induced increase in dopamine concentrations in the nucleus accumbens of animals predisposed to amphetamine self-administration. A microdialysis study

Individual vulnerability to the reinforcing effects of drugs appears to be a crucial factor in the development of addiction in humans. In the rat, individuals at risk for psychostimulant self-administration (SA) may be identified from their locomotor reactivity to a stress situation such as exposure to a novel environment. Animals with high locomotor responses to novelty (high responders, HR) acquire amphetamine SA, while animals with low responses (low responders, LR) do not. In this study we examined by microdialysis whether stress-induced extracellular dopamine (DA) concentrations in the nucleus accumbens differed between these two groups of animals. This neurotransmitter was studied because it is thought to be involved in the reinforcing effects of psychostimulants. Furthermore, previous studies have shown that HR animals have a higher basal DOPAC/DA ratio in the nucleus accumbens and higher extracellular concentrations of dopamine in this structure in response to cocaine. The stress procedure used in this experiment consisted of a 10 min tail-pinch. HR animals displayed a higher and longer stress-induced changes in DA concentrations than the LR group. Regression analysis showed that stress-induced changes in DA levels accounted for 75% of the variance observed in the locomotor response to a novel environment. Since higher DA activity in the nucleus accumbens has been reported in animals in which the propensity to psychostimulant SA is induced by brain lesions or life events, this biochemical modification may be one neurobiological substrate of the predisposition to acquire psychostimulant self-administration.