3. Cocaine, Serotonin, and Conditioned Place Preference
Thomas S. Hnasko, Bethany N. Sotak, and Richard D. Palmiter
The corner bar for the alcoholic or the candy shop for the chocoholic can be irresistible. In the laboratory, conditioned place preference (CPP) is a behavioral measure of the learned association between a rewarding drug and the place where it was received. CPP for cocaine is usually attributed to increases in extracellular dopamine, but cocaine also inhibits serotonin and norepinephrine transporters. This week, Hnasko et al. examined CPP in dopamine-depleted (DD) mice. These animals lacked the catecholaminesynthesizing enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase, but only in dopaminergic neurons. DD mice showed CPP for cocaine at higher doses than controls, but fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, also produced CPP. CPP for either cocaine or fluoxetine required 5-HT1 receptors, suggesting that in the absence of dopamine, CPP arises from cocaine blockade of serotonin reuptake. The authors postulate that CPP in DD mice involves serotonin activation of dopamine neurons.
4. Targeted Immunotherapy of T-Cells in EAE
Sushmita Sinha, Sandhya Subramanian, Thomas M. Proctor, Laurie J. Kaler, Marjorie Grafe, Rony Dahan, Jianya Huan, Arthur A. Vandenbark, Gregory G. Burrows, and Halina Offner
Regulating T-cell responses is one therapeutic strategy for autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). Specific recombinant T-cell receptor ligands (RTLs) can prevent or treat experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a commonly used animal model of MS. These RTLs con
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