Citation

Steketee JD, Kalivas PW. Pharmacol. Rev. 2011; 63(2): 348-365.

Affiliation

Department of Pharmacology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee (J.D.S.); and Department of Neurosciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina (P.W.K.).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics)

DOI

10.1124/pr.109.001933

PMID

21490129

PMCID

PMC3082449

Abstract

Repeated exposure to drugs of abuse enhances the motor-stimulant response to these drugs, a phenomenon termed behavioral sensitization. Animals that are extinguished from self-administration training readily relapse to drug, conditioned cue, or stress priming. The involvement of sensitization in reinstated drug-seeking behavior remains controversial. This review describes sensitization and reinstated drug seeking as behavioral events, and the neural circuitry, neurochemistry, and neuropharmacology underlying both behavioral models will be described, compared, and contrasted. It seems that although sensitization and reinstatement involve overlapping circuitry and neurotransmitter and receptor systems, the role of sensitization in reinstatement remains ill-defined. Nevertheless, it is argued that sensitization remains a useful model for determining the neural basis of addiction, and an example is provided in which data from sensitization studies led to potential pharmacotherapies that have been tested in animal models of relapse and in human addicts.

Language: en