| Title | Somatosensory cortices are required for the acquisition of morphine-induced conditioned place preference. | | Author(s) | Meng Z, Liu C, Hu X, Ma Y | | Institution | Laboratory of Sensory-motor Integration Research and State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Kunming Institute of Zoology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, People's Republic of China. | | Source | PLoS One 2009; 4(11):e7742. | | Abstract | BACKGROUND: Sensory system information is thought to play an important role in drug addiction related responses. However, how somatic sensory information participates in the drug related behaviors is still unclear. Many studies demonstrated that drug addiction represents a pathological usurpation of neural mechanisms of learning and memory that normally relate to the pursuit of rewards. Thus, elucidate the role of somatic sensory in drug related learning and memory is of particular importance to understand the neurobiological mechanisms of drug addiction.
PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In the present study, we investigated the role of somatosensory system in reward-related associative learning using the conditioned place preference model. Lesions were made in somatosensory cortices either before or after conditioning training. We found that lesion of somatosensory cortices before, rather than after morphine conditioning impaired the acquisition of place preference.
CONCLUSION: These results demonstrate that somatosensory cortices are necessary for the acquisition but not retention of morphine induced place preference. | | Language | eng | | Pub Type(s) | Journal Article
| | PubMed ID | 19888465 |
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