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takyon writes:

A protein is found to regulate cocaine-craving after withdrawal

Neuroscientists know that cocaine addiction and withdrawal rewire the brain. But figuring out how to disrupt those changes to treat addiction requires an extremely detailed understanding of how those changes occur. Now, in a paper published recently in Biological Psychiatry, researchers at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo have identified an important piece in the puzzle.

Led by David M. Dietz, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at UB, the team has discovered that a protein in the brain's reward center, the nucleus accumbens, regulates genes that help drive the craving for cocaine after a period of withdrawal. [...] In the current experiments, laboratory animals self-administered cocaine and then experienced abstinence for seven days. After the abstinence period, the researchers saw increased expression of a protein called BRG1 and increased interaction between it and the transcription factor SMAD3.

"We noticed that this transcription factor, which was critical in mediating relapse-like behaviors, was also known to interact with a molecule like BRG1 in other cells in the body," explained Dietz. "We wanted to know if BRG1 and this transcription factor also interact following cocaine addiction and if those interactions helped regulate genes in these individuals." Cocaine not only changes the expression of BRG1, the UB researchers learned, but it also changes how BRG1 interacts with transcription factors known to be essential in mediating gene expression following cocaine use. "In this way, BRG1 facilitates how transcription factors regulate genes after cocaine use and withdrawal," said Dietz.

BRG1 in the Nucleus Accumbens Regulates Cocaine-Seeking Behavior (DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2016.04.020)

Original Submission