Possible Cocaine Addiction Trigger Uncovered: Protein Linked to Mental Retardation May Be Controlling Factor in Drug’s Effect in the Brain | Science Magazine News

Possible Cocaine Addiction Trigger Uncovered: Protein Linked to Mental Retardation May Be Controlling Factor in Drug’s Effect in the Brain | Science Magazine News: "new study, the scientists first looked at the expression of MeCP2 in the brain after exposure to cocaine. They found that expression was increased in those animals given extended access to the drug.
'At that point,' Kenny said, 'we wanted to know if this increase was behaviorally significant -- did it influence the motivation to take the drug?'
Using a virus to disrupt expression of MeCP2, the scientists found that rats consumed less and less cocaine. Intriguingly, levels of miR-212 were also far higher in those animals. Because increases in miR-212 suppress attraction to cocaine, the disruption of MeCP2, in essence, put miR-212 in charge and reduced vulnerability to the drug.
'We concluded that MeCP2 may play an important role in addiction by regulating the magnitude by which miR-212 expression is increased in response to cocaine,' said Kenny. 'In other words, MeCP2 seems to control just how much you can protect yourself against the addictive properties of cocaine.'
Intriguingly, that was not the end of the story. In addition to MeCP2 blunting miR-212 expression, the scientists also found that the opposite was also true -- that miR-212 could in turn decrease levels of MeCP2. This suggests that both are locked together in a regulatory loop. Importantly, the two had opposite effects on the expression of a particular growth factor in the brain -- called BDNF -- that regulates just how rewarding cocaine is.
While the new study fills in an important piece of the puzzle, the Kenny lab is hard at work to further increase our understanding of addiction."

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Some say he’s half man half fish, others say he’s more of a seventy/thirty split. Either way he’s a fishy bastard.

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