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Dopaminergic neurotransmission in ventral and dorsal striatum differentially modulates alcohol reinforcement
Author(s) -
Spoelder Marcia,
Hesseling Peter,
Styles Matthew,
Baars Annemarie M.,
Lozemanvan ‘t Klooster José G.,
Lesscher Heidi M. B.,
Vanderschuren Louk J. M. J.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
european journal of neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.346
H-Index - 206
eISSN - 1460-9568
pISSN - 0953-816X
DOI - 10.1111/ejn.13358
Subject(s) - striatum , nucleus accumbens , dopamine , dopaminergic , neuroscience , basal ganglia , ventral striatum , psychology , neurotransmission , chemistry , pharmacology , medicine , receptor , central nervous system
Dopaminergic neurotransmission in the striatum has been widely implicated in the reinforcing properties of substances of abuse. However, the striatum is functionally heterogeneous, and previous work has mostly focused on psychostimulant drugs. Therefore, we investigated how dopamine within striatal subregions modulates alcohol‐directed behaviour in rats. We assessed the effects of infusion of the dopamine receptor antagonist alpha‐flupenthixol into the shell and core of the nucleus accumbens ( NA cc) and the dorsolateral striatum ( DLS ) on responding for alcohol under fixed ratio 1 ( FR 1) and progressive ratio ( PR ) schedules of reinforcement. Bilateral infusion of alpha‐flupenthixol into the NA cc shell reduced responding for alcohol under both the FR 1 (15 μg/side) and the PR schedule (3.75–15 μg/side) of reinforcement. Infusion of alpha‐flupenthixol into the NA cc core (7.5–15 μg/side) also decreased responding for alcohol under both schedules. By contrast, alpha‐flupenthixol infusion into the DLS did not affect FR 1 responding, but reduced responding under the PR schedule (15 μg/side). The decreases in responding were related to earlier termination of responding during the session, whereas the onset and rate of responding remained largely unaffected. Together, these data suggest that dopamine in the NA cc shell is involved in the incentive motivation for alcohol, whereas DLS dopamine comes into play when obtaining alcohol requires high levels of effort. In contrast, NA cc core dopamine appears to play a more general role in alcohol reinforcement. In conclusion, dopaminergic neurotransmission acts in concert in subregions of the striatum to modulate different aspects of alcohol‐directed behaviour.