Stress and cocaine interact to modulate the activation of BDNF intracellular signalling
-
1
University of Milan, Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, Italy
Preclinical and clinical work indicate that stress is a strong trigger for cocaine abuse. Evidence exists that stress causes craving for cocaine, sensitizes behavioral and neurochemical responses to cocaine and facilitates the reinstatement of drug-taking behavior after extinction periods.
Among the various factors that could be affected by the combined action of stress and cocaine, neurotrophic factors play an important role, although their contribution in these events has been so far underestimated. We focused our attention on the neurotrophin BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor) which is altered following acute or chronic exposure to cocaine, in a finely tuned, temporal and anatomical profile implying that the psychostimulant, at least in part, affects synaptic plasticity through changes in these proteins. The evidence that changes in BDNF expression are long lasting supports their involvement in the synaptic modifications that underlie drug seeking and addiction. We employed a chronic paradigm of unpredictable stress to evaluate the modulation of BDNF expression in response to an acute challenge with cocaine. Our findings demonstrate that stress interacts with cocaine to alter the pattern of BDNF response in a way that depends on whether stress is acute or chronic and in a regionally selective fashion.
Conference:
3rd Mediterranean Conference of Neuroscience , Alexandria, Egypt, 13 Dec - 16 Dec, 2009.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Symposium 07 – Cocaine and brain plasticity: new paths for treating addiction
Citation:
Fumagalli
F
(2009). Stress and cocaine interact to modulate the activation of BDNF intracellular signalling.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
3rd Mediterranean Conference of Neuroscience .
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.01.2009.16.033
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
19 Nov 2009;
Published Online:
19 Nov 2009.
*
Correspondence:
Fabio Fumagalli, University of Milan, Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, Milan, Italy, fabio.fumagalli@unimi.it