Cocaine Related Cues and Craving Impacted by Sex?

            For years researchers have been attempting to determine the implications cocaine can cause on the human brain. Knowing these details can aid those suffering from withdrawal symptoms while trying to break away from their dependence. Jessica Loweth released a study explaining cocaine addiction and cue-related drug craving. When someone becomes addicted to something        such as cocaine, their neural pathways will start firing in the presence of a cue that reminds them of the drug. These cues can be people, places, or things that can trigger the drug craving to begin. By studying rats and their addiction craving levels, Loweth found that mGluR1 negatively regulates CP-AMPAR function in the NAc, and it also negatively regulates cocaine craving.

            She found this by studying rats that were drug naive and drug dependent. The rats were placed in a box and allowed to self-administer tiny doses of cocaine followed by a short delay. They would spend time in these boxes daily and eventually became addicted. However, when the rats were placed in a box similar to the cocaine box (but in the absence of cocaine) they would repeatedly attempt self-administration, proving their addiction to drug related cues.

            These cocaine cravings have been the topic of Potenza’s work as well. He wanted to see if cocaine dependence could be influenced by gender. His studies show the brain regions most activated during this craving phase are the striatum, insula, and anterior and posterior cingulate. Cocaine is also linked to corticostriatal-limbic hyperactivity. It turns out gender does play a role. These cravings can lead to stress cues for women while drug cues for men. However, in both neural-relaxing conditions were found throughout both men and women trials. These findings can help those currently experiencing drug dependency and withdrawal by personalizing treatment instead of given a gender neutral one.

Loweth, J. A., Tseng, K. Y., & Wolf, M. E. (2013). Using metabotropic glutamate receptors to modulate cocaine's synaptic and behavioral effects: mGluR1 finds a niche. Current opinion in neurobiology, 23(4), 500-506.

Potenza, M. N., Hong, K. I. A., Lacadie, C. M., Fulbright, R. K., Tuit, K. L., & Sinha, R. (2014). Neural correlates of stress-induced and cue-induced drug craving: influences of sex and cocaine dependence.