Drug-Induced Alterations of Endocannabinoid-Mediated Plasticity in Brain Reward Regions

The endocannabinoid (eCB) system has emerged as one of the most important mediators of physiological and pathological reward-related synaptic plasticity. eCBs are retrograde messengers that provide feedback inhibition, resulting in the suppression of neurotransmitter release at both excitatory and inhibitory synapses, and they serve a critical role in the spatiotemporal regulation of both short- and long-term synaptic plasticity that supports adaptive learning of reward-motivated behaviors. However, mechanisms of eCB-mediated synaptic plasticity in reward areas of the brain are impaired following exposure to drugs of abuse. Because of this, it is theorized that maladaptive eCB signaling may contribute to the development and maintenance of addiction-related behavior. Here we review various forms of eCB-mediated synaptic plasticity present in regions of the brain involved in reward and reinforcement and explore the potential physiological relevance of maladaptive eCB signaling to addiction vulnerability.

• Publication year

  2016

• Venue

  Journal of Neuroscience

• Publication date

  2016-10-05

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1712-16.2016PMID 27707960PMCID PMC5050322
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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