Impact of stress in the vulnerability to cocaine addiction: Role of cofilin during the acquisition of cocaine self-administration in nucleus accumbens.

GUZMAN ANDREA SUZANA; BOLLATI FLAVIA; AVALOS MARIA PAULA; CANCELA LILIANA M; RIGONI DAIANA; BISBAL MARIANO

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 2nd Federation of Latin-American and Caribbean Societies for Neuroscience (FALAN).; 2016

Preclinical studies using the model of self-administration (AA) support the idea of a proactiveinfluence of stress. Studies from our laboratory revealed that repeated stressalters the capacity of a subsequent cocaine injection to modulate dendriticspine morphology, actin dynamics and AMPAR expression in the nucleus accumbens(NA) core. We have demonstrated that the pharmacological inhibition of actinpolymerization in the NA prevents stress cross-sensitization with cocaine. Thus,the main goal of this project is to evaluate the impact of the actincytoskeleton in the changes underling the facilitatory influence of cocaineafter exposure to chronic stress in the acquisition of cocaineself-administration. For this purpose we have generated a lentivirus containinga short hairpin RNA (shRNA) specific to cofilin, to inhibit its expression inNA, and explore its function during the acquisition of cocaine self-administration. Thus, Sprague Dolly rats were exposed to chronic restraintstress two hours daily during 7 days. Stressed and control animals wereadministered with an intra-accumbens injection of lentiviral particles the nextday after the final stress (day 8). One week after the intracranial injectionall animals were anaesthetizedfor surgery for implantation of permanents catheters in the right jugular veinand 7 days later self-administration sessions began. Our preliminary data suggests that theinhibition of cofilin prevents the acquisition of cocaine self-administrationin animals pre-exposed to chronic stress.