Although the pharmacology of amphetamine-like psychostimulants at dopamine transporters
is well understood, addiction to this class of drugs has proven difficult to deal with. The …

Adolescence is characterized by vulnerability to the development of neuropsychiatric
disorders including drug addiction, as well as prefrontal cortical refinement that culminates …

It is now known that brain development continues into adolescence and early adulthood and
is highly influenced by experience-dependent adaptive plasticity during this time …

The development of pharmacotherapies for cocaine addiction has been disappointingly
slow. However, new neurobiological knowledge of how the brain is changed by chronic …

Drug addiction is a chronic, relapsing disorder, characterized by an uncontrollable
motivation to seek and use drugs. Converging clinical and preclinical observations implicate …

Exposure to psychostimulants results in structural and synaptic plasticity in striatal medium
spiny neurons (MSNs). These cellular adaptations arise from alterations in genes that are …

Humans are commonly exposed to the representative neurotoxic heavy metals lead (Pb),
cadmium (Cd), and mercury (Hg). These three substances can be detected simultaneously …

Glutamatergic signaling plays an important role in the behavioral and molecular plasticity
observed in behavioral sensitization to cocaine. Redistribution of the glutamate receptors in …

The prelimbic prefrontal cortex is necessary for associating actions with their consequences,
enabling goal-directed decision making. We find that the strength of action–outcome …

Illicit use of drugs frequently begins and escalates during adolescence, with long-term
adverse consequences. Because it is increasingly accepted that neural development …