Abstract
Addictive diseases, including addiction to alcohol, pose massive public health costs. Addiction is a chronic relapsing disease caused by both the direct effects induced by drugs and persistent neuroadaptations at the molecular, cellular, and behavioral levels. These drug-type specific neuroadaptations are brought on largely by the reinforcing effects of drugs on the central nervous system and environmental stressors. Results from animal experiments have demonstrated important interactions between alcohol and stress-responsive systems. Addiction to specific drugs such as alcohol, psychostimulants, and opioids shares some common direct or downstream effects on the brain’s stress-responsive systems, including arginine vasopressin and its V1b receptors, dynorphin and the κ-opioid receptors, pro-opiomelanocortin/β-endorphin and the μ-opioid receptors, and the endocannabinoids. Further study of these systems through laboratory-based and translational research could lead to the discovery of novel treatment targets and the early optimization of interventions (for example, combination) for the pharmacologic therapy of alcoholism.
Footnotes
- Received October 10, 2017.
- Accepted April 16, 2018.
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [Grant AA021970 (to Y.Z.)], Robertson Therapeutic Development Fund at the Rockefeller University (to Y.Z.) and by Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation (to M.J.K.).
- Copyright © 2018 by The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics