Deep Brain Stimulation for the Treatment of Addiction: Basic and Clinical Studies and Potential Mechanisms of Action.
Deep brain stimulation for the treatment of addiction: basic and clinical studies and potential mechanisms of action.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2013 Aug 2;
Pierce RC, Vassoler FM
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has achieved substantial success as a treatment for movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. The therapeutic efficacy and relative lack of serious side effects resulted in the expansion of DBS into the treatment of many other diseases, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette’s, and depression, among others. More recently, a limited number of basic and clinical studies indicated that DBS may also be useful in the treatment of various addictions.Here, we briefly summarize the history of DBS and review the basic and clinical studies focused on DBS and addiction. We also examine the potential mechanisms that may underlie the effects of DBS.The available data indicate that DBS is a promising therapeutic modality for the treatment of addiction. Thus far, the nucleus accumbens and subthalamic nucleus are the most promising sites for DBS, reversing aspects of addiction. The mechanisms underlying DBS are complex and likely vary from region to region. Emerging evidence indicates that DBS of the nucleus accumbens produces its effects, at least in part, by antidromic activation of cortico-accumbal afferents that stimulate inhibitory medial prefrontal cortex interneurons via recurrent collaterals. HubMed – addiction
Assessing addiction vulnerability with different rat strains and place preference procedures: the role of the cocaine and amphetamine-regulated transcript.
Behav Pharmacol. 2013 Sep; 24(5 and 6): 471-477
Salas E, Bocos C, Castillo CD, Pérez-García C, Morales L, Alguacil LF
Validated biomarkers of addiction vulnerability are unavailable despite their potential value in diagnostics and therapeutics. As cocaine and amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART) peptides can be considered candidates for such biomarkers, we have studied the acute regulation of CART gene expression in the nucleus accumbens of rats with different drug-seeking behaviors. Two subgroups of Sprague-Dawley rats with different persistences of cocaine-induced and morphine-induced place preference showed a similar regulation of CART mRNA irrespective of their behavioral differences: CART gene expression was unaffected by acute cocaine and downregulated by acute morphine to a similar extent in both subgroups. Fischer 344 and Lewis rats, known to exhibit very different drug-seeking behaviors, showed lower basal expression of CART when compared with Sprague-Dawley rats, being almost undetectable in the case of the Lewis strain. Acute morphine downregulated CART in Fischer 344 rats as it did in Sprague-Dawley rats. The results tend to show that CART mRNA regulation by acute morphine or cocaine in the nucleus accumbens does not seem predictive of addiction vulnerability. However, in the particular case of Lewis rats, the pronounced hypoactivity of the CART system could contribute to the high vulnerability of this strain to develop drug-seeking behaviors. HubMed – addiction
[Deep brain stimulation : New target areas and new indications.]
Nervenarzt. 2013 Aug 3;
Reich MM, Kühn AA, Volkmann J
Many patients with neurological movement disorders and psychiatric diseases cannot yet be adequately treated with conventional methods. Deep brain stimulation represents an important extension of therapeutic options by which invasive electrodes are implanted in various subcortical brain areas in order to achieve an improvement in motor and psychiatric symptoms by high frequency stimulation. Up to 2012 approximately 100,000 patients had been treated with deep brain stimulation worldwide. The indications for deep brain stimulation were essentially already established indications, such as idiopathic Parkinson’s syndrome, dystonia and tremors. The newer indications which include in particular psychiatric symptoms, such as depression, obsessive diseases, addiction and Tourette syndrome, are as yet limited to approximately 5 % of treated patients. An increasingly better understanding of the system physiology of neurological and psychiatric diseases has promoted the search for new target areas and indications for treatment by neuromodulation. This article gives an overview of the latest developments in the established and also the developing application areas of deep brain stimulation. HubMed – addiction