Addiction Rehab: Blacks and Hispanics Are Less Likely Than Whites to Complete Addiction Treatment, Largely Due to Socioeconomic Factors.
Blacks and hispanics are less likely than whites to complete addiction treatment, largely due to socioeconomic factors.
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
Health Aff (Millwood). 2013 Jan; 32(1): 135-45
Saloner B, Cook BL
More than one-third of the approximately two million people entering publicly funded substance abuse treatment in the United States do not complete treatment. Additionally, racial and ethnic minorities with addiction disorders, who constitute approximately 40 percent of the admissions in publicly funded substance abuse treatment programs, may be particularly at risk for poor outcomes. Using national data, we found that blacks and Hispanics were 3.5-8.1 percentage points less likely than whites to complete treatment for alcohol and drugs, and Native Americans were 4.7 percentage points less likely to complete alcohol treatment. Only Asian Americans fared better than whites for both types of treatment. Completion disparities for blacks and Hispanics were largely explained by differences in socioeconomic status and, in particular, greater unemployment and housing instability. However, the alcohol treatment disparity for Native Americans was not explained by socioeconomic or treatment variables, a finding that warrants further investigation. The Affordable Care Act could reduce financial barriers to treatment for minorities, but further steps, such as increased Medicaid funding for residential treatment and better cultural training for providers, would improve the likelihood of completing treatment and increase treatment providers’ cultural competence.
HubMed – addiction
Monitoring axonal and somatodendritic dopamine release using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry in brain slices.
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
Methods Mol Biol. 2013; 964: 243-73
Patel JC, Rice ME
Brain dopamine pathways serve wide-ranging functions including the control of movement, reward, cognition, learning, and mood. Consequently, dysfunction of dopamine transmission has been implicated in clinical conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, addiction, and depression. Establishing factors that regulate dopamine release can provide novel insights into dopaminergic communication under normal conditions, as well as in animal models of disease in the brain. Here we describe methods for the study of somatodendritic and axonal dopamine release in brain slice preparations. Topics covered include preparation and calibration of carbon-fiber microelectrodes for use with fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, preparation of midbrain and forebrain slices, and procedures of eliciting and recording electrically evoked dopamine release from in vitro brain slices.
HubMed – addiction
Application of cell-specific isolation to the study of dopamine signaling in Drosophila.
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
Methods Mol Biol. 2013; 964: 215-25
Iyer EP, Iyer SC, Cox DN
Dopamine neurotransmission accounts for a number of important brain functions across species including memory formation, the anticipation of reward, cognitive facilities, and drug addiction. Despite this functional significance, relatively little is known of the cellular pathways associated with drug-induced molecular adaptations within individual neurons. Due to its genetic tractability, simplicity, and economy of scale, Drosophila melanogaster has become an important tool in the study of neurological disease states, including drug addiction. To facilitate high-resolution functional analyses of dopamine signaling, it is highly advantageous to obtain genetic material, such as RNA or protein, from a homogeneous cell source. This process can be particularly challenging in most organisms including small model system organisms such as Drosophila melanogaster. Magnetic bead-based cell sorting has emerged as a powerful tool that can be used to isolate select populations of cells, from a whole organism or tissue such as the brain, for genomic as well as proteomic expression profiling. Coupled with the temporal and spatial specificity of the GAL4/UAS system, we demonstrate the application of magnetic bead-based cell sorting towards the isolation of dopaminergic neurons from the Drosophila adult nervous system. RNA derived from these neurons is of high quality and suitable for downstream applications such as microarray expression profiling or quantitative rtPCR. The versatility of this methodology stems from the fact that the cell-specific isolation method employed can be used under a variety of experimental conditions designed to survey molecular adaptations in dopamine signaling neurons including in response to drugs of abuse.
HubMed – addiction
A molecular genetic approach to uncovering the differential functions of dopamine d2 receptor isoforms.
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
Methods Mol Biol. 2013; 964: 181-200
Wang Y, Sasaoka T, Dang MT
Alterations in the activity of the dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) have been implicated in several neurological and psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Tourette syndrome, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and drug addiction. Two isoforms of D2R, long form (D2LR) and short form (D2SR), have been identified. The specific function of each D2R isoform is poorly understood, primarily because isoform-selective pharmacological agents are not available. Using homologous recombination, we have generated D2LR knockout (KO) mice. D2LR KO mice are completely deficient in D2LR, but still express functional D2SR at a level similar to the total D2R level in wild-type (WT) mice. D2LR is generally the predominant isoform expressed in WT mice. We showed that D2LR KO mice displayed a number of robust behavioral phenotypes distinct from WT mice, indicating that D2LR and D2SR have differential functions. In this chapter we describe the generation and characterization of the D2LR KO mouse. This genetic approach provides a valuable research tool to investigate the functional role of individual D2R isoforms in the mammalian central nervous system (CNS).
HubMed – addiction
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