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Cocaine-induced structural plasticity in frontal cortex correlates with conditioned place preference

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Abstract

Contextual cues associated with previous drug exposure can trigger drug craving and seeking, and form a substantial obstacle in substance use recovery. Using in vivo imaging in mice, we found that cocaine administration induced a rapid increase in the formation and accumulation of new dendritic spines, and that measures of new persistent spine gain correlated with cocaine conditioned place preference. Our data suggest that new persistent spine formation in the frontal cortex may be involved in stimulant-related learning driving appetitive behavior.

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Figure 1: Cocaine exposure increases spine gains in the frontal cortex.
Figure 2: Cocaine increases spine gains in the frontal cortex within 2 h of injection.
Figure 3: New persistent spine gains after cocaine CPP training correlate with the magnitude of gain in preference for the cocaine-paired context.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Whistler, P. Janak, S. Jurado, C. Johnson and C. Bates for comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA029150), the State of California, University of California San Francisco, and the P. Royer and K. Clayton Family.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA

    Francisco Javier Muñoz-Cuevas, Jegath Athilingam, Denise Piscopo & Linda Wilbrecht

  2. Department of Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA

    Denise Piscopo

  3. Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, USA

    Linda Wilbrecht

Authors
  1. Francisco Javier Muñoz-Cuevas
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  2. Jegath Athilingam
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  3. Denise Piscopo
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  4. Linda Wilbrecht
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Contributions

F.J.M.-C., J.A. and D.P. performed the experiments. L.W. and F.J.M.-C. designed the experiments, analyzed the data and wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Linda Wilbrecht.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Muñoz-Cuevas, F., Athilingam, J., Piscopo, D. et al. Cocaine-induced structural plasticity in frontal cortex correlates with conditioned place preference. Nat Neurosci 16, 1367–1369 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3498

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3498

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