TY - JOUR T1 - Diazepam Concurrently Increases the Frequency and Decreases the Amplitude of Transient Dopamine Release Events in the Nucleus Accumbens JF - Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics JO - J Pharmacol Exp Ther SP - 145 LP - 155 DO - 10.1124/jpet.117.241802 VL - 364 IS - 1 AU - Scott A. Schelp AU - Zachary D. Brodnik AU - Dylan R. Rakowski AU - Katherine J. Pultorak AU - Asha T. Sambells AU - Rodrigo A. EspaƱa AU - Erik B. Oleson Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/364/1/145.abstract N2 - Benzodiazepines are commonly prescribed anxiolytics that pose abuse liability in susceptible individuals. Although it is well established that all drugs of abuse increase brain dopamine levels, and benzodiazepines are allosteric modulators of the GABAA receptor, it remains unclear how they alter dopamine release. Using in vivo fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, we measured diazepam-induced changes in the frequency and amplitude of transient dopamine release events. We found that diazepam concurrently increases the frequency and decreases the amplitude of transient dopamine release events in the awake and freely moving rat. The time course during which diazepam altered the frequency and amplitude of dopamine release events diverged, with the decreased amplitude effect being shorter lived than the increase in frequency, but both showing similar rates of onset. We conclude that diazepam increases the frequency of accumbal dopamine release events by disinhibiting dopamine neurons, but also decreases their amplitude. We speculate that the modest abuse liability of benzodiazepines is due to their ability to decrease the amplitude of dopamine release events in addition to increasing their frequency. ER -