Collin D Teague, Tamara Markovic, Xianxiao Zhou, Freddyson J Martinez-Rivera, Angelica Minier-Toribio, Alexander Zinsmaier, Nathalia V Pulido, Kyra H Schmidt, Kelsey E Lucerne, Arthur Godino, Yentl Y van der Zee, Aarthi Ramakrishnan, Rita Futamura, Caleb J Browne, Leanne M Holt, Yun Young Yim, Corrine H Azizian, Deena M Walker, Li Shen, Yan Dong, Bin Zhang, Eric J Nestler
Cocaine use disorder is a significant public health issue without an effective pharmacological treatment. Successful treatments are hindered in part by an incomplete understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlie long-lasting maladaptive plasticity and addiction-like behaviors. Here, we leverage a large RNA-sequencing dataset to generate gene co-expression networks across 6 interconnected regions of the brain's reward circuitry from mice that underwent saline or cocaine self-administration. We identify phosphodiesterase 1b ( Pde1b ), a Ca2+ /calmodulin-dependent enzyme that increases cAMP and cGMP hydrolysis, as a central hub gene within a nucleus accumbens (NAc) gene module that was bioinformatically associated with addiction-like behavior...
April 18, 2024: Journal of Neuroscience