Pharmacogenetic manipulation of brain regions to reduce alcohol binge drinking

大脑区域的药物遗传学操作以减少酗酒

• 批准号: 9223631
• 负责人: Angela Renee Ozburn
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: PORTLAND VA MEDICAL CENTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-10-01 至 2019-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9223631
• 关键词: Acute; Affect; Alcohol abuse; Alcohol consumption; Alcohol dependence; Alcohol-Related Disorders; Alcoholism; Alcohols; Animal Genetics; Animal Model; Area; Behavior; Behavioral; Biological; Biological Assay; Blood alcohol level measurement; Brain; Brain region; Candidate Disease Gene; Cells; Chronic; Clinical Trials; Clozapine; Darkness; Data; Deep Brain Stimulation; Dependence; Diagnosis; Disease; Epigenetic Process; Ethanol; Family; Gene Delivery; Gene Expression; Genes; Genetic Transcription; Healthcare Systems; Individual; Intake; Knowledge; Liquid substance; Measures; Mediating; Medical; Mental disorders; Methods; Morphology; Motivation; Mus; Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptor; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurons; Nucleus Accumbens; Oxides; Pathway Analysis; Pathway interactions; Persons; Pharmacogenetics; Property; Public Health; Published Comment; Relapse; Research; Research Priority; Rewards; Signal Transduction; Stress; Substance abuse problem; Testing; Therapeutic; Time; Viral; adverse outcome; alcohol abuse therapy; alcohol behavior; alcohol craving; alcohol measurement; alcohol relapse; alcohol research; alcohol reward; alcohol use disorder; binge drinking; designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs; differential expression; disorder later incidence prevention; drinking; drinking behavior; effective therapy; experimental study; insight; neuronal circuitry; novel; public health relevance; response; tool; transcription factor; transcriptome; transcriptome sequencing

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Alcohol dependence is a devastating psychiatric disorder to individuals and their families, with substantial medical and societal impact. There exists a serious public health need to identify and characterize new and more effective treatments. Chronic alcohol intake leads to long lasting changes in reward- and stress-related neuronal circuitry. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is an integral component of this circuitry. The stability of behavioral alterations associated with chronic alcohol abuse suggests maladaptive neuroplasticity that is likely achieved through transcriptional mechanisms. Recent clinical trials have revealed that deep brain stimulation of the NAc decreases alcohol craving and relapse in alcohol dependent subjects (Vogues et al., 2012). Much is unknown about the efficacy and mechanisms underlying treatments that alter brain activity. In the proposed studies, I will use DREADDs (designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs) to increase or decrease neuronal activity in the nucleus accumbens and measure alcohol binge drinking (using the limited access paradigm, drinking in the dark) and relapse-like drinking (using chronic intermittent ethanol induction of dependence followed by limited access drinking) behaviors in mice selectively bred to drink intoxicating levels of alcohol in a limited access paradigm. Interestingly, preliminary data reveal that increasing NAc activity decreases binge drinking without altering alcohol reward. Since this is the first time a study such as this has been conducted, it will be essential to determine if these changes in behavior are accompanied by changes in expression of plasticity-related genes and identify DREADD/alcohol responsive gene expression networks using whole transcriptome sequencing (RNA Seq). These findings could have vast implications for alcohol research and treatment.

描述（由申请人提供）： 酒精依赖对个人及其家庭来说是一种毁灭性的精神疾病，具有巨大的医疗和社会影响。公共卫生领域迫切需要确定和描述新的、更有效的治疗方法。长期饮酒会导致与奖励和压力相关的神经元回路发生长期持续的变化。伏隔核 (NAc) 是该电路的一个组成部分。与长期酗酒相关的行为改变的稳定性表明适应不良的神经可塑性可能是通过转录机制实现的。最近的临床试验表明，对 NAc 进行深部脑部刺激可降低酒精依赖者的酒精渴望和复发（Vogues 等，2012）。关于改变大脑活动的治疗的功效和机制尚不清楚。在拟议的研究中，我将使用 DREADD（专门由设计药物激活的设计受体）来增加或减少伏隔核中的神经元活动，并测量酗酒（使用有限访问范式，在黑暗中饮酒）和复发样饮酒（使用慢性间歇性乙醇诱导依赖性，然后限制性饮酒）选择性培育的小鼠的行为，使其在有限的获取范式中饮用令人陶醉的酒精水平。有趣的是，初步数据显示，增加 NAc 活性可以减少酗酒，但不会改变酒精奖励。由于这是首次进行此类研究，因此有必要确定这些行为变化是否伴随可塑性相关基因表达的变化，并使用全转录组测序识别 DREADD/酒精反应基因表达网络（RNA 序列）。这些发现可能对酒精研究和治疗产生巨大影响。