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Glutamatergic Plasticity In Medial Prefrontal Cortex And Ventral Tegmental Area Following Extended-Access Cocaine Self-Administration, Behnam Ghasemzadeh, Preethi Vasudevan, Chad Giles, Anthony Purgianto, Chad Seubert, John R. Mantsch

Biomedical Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Glutamate signaling in prefrontal cortex and ventral tegmental area plays an important role in the molecular and behavioral plasticity associated with addiction to drugs of abuse. The current study investigated the expression and postsynaptic density redistribution of glutamate receptors and synaptic scaffolding proteins in dorsomedial and ventromedial prefrontal cortex and ventral tegmental area after cocaine self-administration. After 14 days of extended-access (6 h/day) cocaine self-administration, rats were exposed to one of three withdrawal regimen for 10 days. Animals either stayed in home cages (Home), returned to self-administration boxes with the levers withdrawn (Box), or underwent extinction training (Extinction). Extinction training …