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Differentiating the rapid actions of cocaine

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 12, pages 479–484 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

The subjective effects of intravenous cocaine are felt almost immediately, and this immediacy plays an important part in the drug's rewarding impact. The primary rewarding effect of cocaine involves blockade of dopamine reuptake; however, the onset of this action is too late to account for the drug's initial effects. Recent studies suggest that cocaine-predictive cues — including peripheral interoceptive cues generated by cocaine itself — come to cause more direct and earlier reward signalling by activating excitatory inputs to the dopamine system. The conditioned activation of the dopamine system by cocaine-predictive cues offers a new target for potential addiction therapies.

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Figure 1: Proposed extracellular dopamine fluctuations following cocaine self-administration.

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Acknowledgements

Preparation of this manuscript was supported by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Intramural Research Program. The authors would like to thank S. Steidl and K. Cardiff for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

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  1. Roy A. Wise and Eugene A. Kiyatkin are at the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, Behavioral Neuroscience Section, 251 Bayview Boulevard. Baltimore, Maryland 21224, USA.,

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Wise, R., Kiyatkin, E. Differentiating the rapid actions of cocaine. Nat Rev Neurosci 12, 479–484 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3043

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