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Cocaine abuse: hard knocks for the dopamine hypothesis?

Nature Neuroscience volume 1, pages 90–92 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

The idea that cocaine's reinforcing effects are due to its action at the dopamine transporter is challenged by a new finding that mice lacking this protein self-administer cocaine.

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Figure 1: Dopamine synapse in wild-type and DAT-knockout mice.
Figure 2: Dopamine's role in cocaine's mechanism of action, and a possible alternative in DAT-knockout mice.
Figure 3: Actions of cocaine at neural transporters in normal rats and DAT-knockout mice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Center, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, 02178, 115 Mill Street, Massachusetts, USA

    S. Barak Caine

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  1. S. Barak Caine
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Correspondence to S. Barak Caine.

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Caine, S. Cocaine abuse: hard knocks for the dopamine hypothesis?. Nat Neurosci 1, 90–92 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/335

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