Abstract
A challenge in treating drug addicts is preventing their pathological motivation for the drug without impairing their general affective state toward natural reinforcers. Here we have shown that discrete lesions of the subthalamic nucleus greatly decreased the motivation of rats for cocaine while increasing it for food reward. The subthalamic nucleus, a key structure controlling basal ganglia outputs, is therefore able to oppositely modulate the effect of 'natural' rewards and drugs of abuse on behavior. Modulating the activity of the subthalamic nucleus might prove to be a new target for the treatment of cocaine addiction.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, a European Community 5th PCRDT program funding (QLK6-1999-02173), and by the Fondation France Parkinson and Conseil Régional d'Aquitaine. The authors thank P.V. Piazza for critical reading and corrections of the manuscript; B. J. Everitt, T.W. Robbins, S.H. Ahmed and L. Vanderschuren for discussion of the results and manuscript; and Y. Darbaky and R. LeCozannet for help.
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Baunez, C., Dias, C., Cador, M. et al. The subthalamic nucleus exerts opposite control on cocaine and 'natural' rewards. Nat Neurosci 8, 484–489 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1429
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1429
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