NPP and Member in the News: Repeated teen cannabis use may disrupt dopamine-related brain development, MRI data suggest bit.ly/4xlugcI Check out the original @npp-journal.bsky.social article at bit.ly/4dY3saO
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What beats summer sunshine? 🌞
Reading top-notch science while soaking up rays 😎
See below for the latest from NPP #ThisWeekInNPP
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This recent study suggests that MDMA's primary effect limits trauma-driven alcohol escalation rather than enhancing extinction learning in 🐀 / Gavan McNally Shalini Arunogiri Leigh Walker
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Knockdown of enkephalin in the dorsal raphe nucleus raised pain sensitivity and odor aversion while lowering sucrose preference and social interaction—identifying a non-serotonergic population that promotes reward
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
In this study, turning off one 🧠 pathway reduced drug seeking—but turning off another made it worse, illustrating “inhibitory” optogenetics can have opposite effects depending on the circuit, revealing new insights into relapse vulnerability
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Adolescent cannabis use tracked with lower subcortical tissue iron in dopamine-rich regions (VTA, pallidum, thalamus), an MRI proxy for dopamine neurophysiology. Concentrates showed stronger links than flower
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Heavy drinkers showed elevated brain acetate oxidation, which dropped after ~1 week of abstinence but normalized to light-drinker levels by 1 month. Alcohol-related shifts in acetate metabolism appear reversible
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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In a rat model, offspring of dams given uncontrolled gestational oxycodone showed more drug taking and seeking than offspring of self-administering dams, despite similar exposure. Effects were strongest in females
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Rapid computational markers of decision-making predicted daily smoking and cessation outcomes. Higher craving and depressive symptoms forecast more smoking; first-week data alone predicted treatment success
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Neuropsychopharmacology - Contrasting roles of secondary motor cortex projections to the dorsolateral and dorsomedial striatum in incubation of cocaine-seeking
Neuropsychopharmacology - Rapid and reliable computational markers of decision-making for predicting daily smoking behavior and smoking cessation treatment outcomes
Neuropsychopharmacology - MDMA alters fear extinction, and reduces alcohol consumption in inbred alcohol preferring iP rats but not outbred Wistar rats
