Cocaine Effects On The Brain

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Drug addiction involves potentially life-long behavioural abnormalities that are caused in vulnerable individuals by repeated exposure to a drug of abuse (Kumar et al., 2005). The persistence of these behavioural changes suggests that long-lasting changes in gene expression, within regions of the brain, may contribute to the addiction phenotype (Kumar et al., 2005). Recent research has been aiming to characterize the influence of epigenetic regulatory events in mediating the lasting effects of abusive drugs on the brain in animal models of drug addiction (Kumar et al., 2005). Evidence has shown that repeated exposure to abusive drugs induces change within the brain’s reward region in three modes of epigenetic regulations; histone modifications …show more content…

It is a process that affects the dopamine removal in the synapse causing an amplified signal to the receiving neuron (Wolf, 2010). Acute or repeated exposure to cocaine increases global levels of acetylated histone H3 and H4 in the nucleus accumbens which is a key reward region in the brain (Covington III, 2011). Despite long-standing efforts to identify compounds capable of selectively inhibiting the addictive effects of cocaine, there are currently no approved medications for the treatment of cocaine abuse or toxicity (Wolf, 2010). The purpose of this paper is to increase awareness of the behavioural and genetic effects of such a drug and how it changes certain genes in our body and find ways to help individuals cope with the addiction (Wolf, …show more content…

A study done by Puig and colleagues (2012) compared the effects of intermittent (once daily) and binge (three times a day) cocaine treatment for 1 and 14 days after the last cocaine injection on spontaneous locomotor activity and dopamine levels in the NAc in rats. The intermittent treatment led to a spontaneous increase in dopamine and in locomotor activity at the exact hour which rats were habituated to receive a cocaine injection (Puig, Noble & Benturquia, 2012). The binge treatment led to sensitization of locomotor effects of cocaine, associated to a dopamine release sensitization in the NAc (Puig, Noble & Benturquia, 2012). These results show the addictive nature of cocaine and the behavioural and sensitization effects it has on the animal, which can be related to the effects it can possibly have on humans (Puig, Noble & Benturquia,

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