Abstract
GENERAL COMMENTARY article Front. Behav. Neurosci., 06 March 2013Sec. Motivation and Reward Volume 7 - 2013 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2013.00018
Highlights
The lack of effective pharmacotherapies to prevent relapse to drug taking emphasizes the importance of fully characterizing the brain pathways responsible for this behavior (Kalivas and McFarland, 2003)
Glutamatergic efferents from the paraventricular thalamus (PVT) are closely apposed to dopamine fibers in the nucleus accumbens (NAC) shell (Pinto et al, 2003) and stimulation of the PVT produces an efflux of dopamine in this brain region (Jones et al, 1989; Parsons et al, 2007)
Our group has shown that inactivation of the PVT using TTX or intra-PVT injections of the inhibitory peptide cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART) attenuates cocaine-primed reinstatement (James et al, 2010)
Summary
The lack of effective pharmacotherapies to prevent relapse to drug taking emphasizes the importance of fully characterizing the brain pathways responsible for this behavior (Kalivas and McFarland, 2003). A commentary on Orexin/hypocretin (Orx/Hcrt) transmission and drug-seeking behavior: is the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) part of the drug seeking circuitry? There have been attempts to more fully understand the brain circuitry responsible for drug-seeking behavior, beyond the well-characterized nodes such as the prefrontal cortex (PFC), nucleus accumbens (NAC), and ventral tegmental area (VTA).
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