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آرشيو موضوعي |
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Addiction: A Disease of Learning and Memory
Steven E. Hyman, M.D.
If neurobiology is ultimately to contribute to the
development of successful treatments for drug
addiction, researchers must discover the
molecular mechanisms by which drug-seeking behaviors
are consolidated into compulsive use, the
mechanisms that underlie the long persistence
of relapse risk, and the mechanisms by which
drug-associated cues come to control behavior. Evidence
at the molecular, cellular, systems, behavioral,
and computational levels of analysis is
converging to suggest the view that addiction
represents a pathological usurpation of the neural
mechanisms of learning and memory that under
normal circumstances serve to shape survival
behaviors related to the pursuit of rewards
and the cues that predict them. The author summarizes
the converging evidence in this area and
highlights key questions that remain.
Addiction is defined as compulsive drug use despite
negative consequences. The goals of the
addicted person become narrowed to obtaining,
using, and recovering from drugs, despite failure
in life roles, medical illness, risk of
incarceration, and other problems. An
important characteristic of addiction is its stubborn
persistence
(1,
2). Although some individuals can stop compulsive
use of tobacco, alcohol, or illegal drugs on their
own, for a large number of individuals
rendered vulnerable by both genetic and
nongenetic factors
(3–5),
addiction proves to be a recalcitrant,
chronic, and relapsing condition
(2). The central problem in the treatment
of addiction is that even after prolonged
drug-free periods, well after the last withdrawal
symptom has receded, the risk of relapse,
often precipitated by drug-associated cues,
remains very high
(6,
7). Were this not the case, treatment
could simply consist of locking addicted people away in
a protective environment until withdrawal
symptoms were comfortably behind them,
issuing a stern warning about future behavior, and
having done with it.
Memory disorders are often thought of as conditions
involving memory loss, but what if the brain
remembers too much or too powerfully records
pathological associations? During the last
decade, advances in understanding the role of dopamine
in reward-related learning
(8) have made a compelling case for a "pathological
learning" model of addiction that is consistent
with long-standing observations about the
behavior of addicted people
(6). This work, along with more recent
computational analyses of dopamine action
(9,
10), has suggested mechanisms by which drugs and
drug-associated stimuli might attain their
motivational power. At the same time,
cellular and molecular investigations have
revealed similarities between the actions of addictive
drugs and normal forms of learning and memory
(11–14),
with the caveat that our current knowledge of
how memory is encoded
(15) and how it persists
(15,
16) is far from complete for any
mammalian memory system. Here I argue that addiction
represents a pathological usurpation of the
neural mechanisms of learning and memory that
under normal circumstances serve to shape survival
behaviors related to the pursuit of rewards and
the cues that predict them
(11,
17–20).
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A
Hijacking of Neural Systems Related to the
Pursuit of Rewards |
Individual and species survival demand that organisms
find and obtain needed resources (e.g., food
and shelter) and opportunities for mating
despite costs and risks. Such survival-relevant natural
goals act as "rewards," i.e., they are pursued
with the anticipation that their consumption
(or consummation) will produce desired
outcomes (i.e., will "make things better"). Behaviors
with rewarding goals tend to persist strongly
to a conclusion and increase over time (i.e.,
they are positively reinforcing)
(21). Internal motivational states, such
as hunger, thirst, and sexual arousal,
increase the incentive value of goal-related cues and of
the goal objects themselves and also increase
the pleasure of consumption (e.g., food
tastes better when one is hungry)
(22). External cues related to rewards
(incentive stimuli), such as the sight or
odor of food or the odor of an estrous female, can
initiate or strengthen motivational states,
increasing the likelihood that complex and
often difficult behavioral sequences, such as
foraging or hunting for food, will be brought to a
successful conclusion, even in the face of
obstacles. The behavioral sequences involved
in obtaining desired rewards (e.g., sequences involved
in hunting or foraging) become overlearned. As a
result, complex action sequences can be
performed smoothly and efficiently, much as
an athlete learns routines to the point that they are
automatic but still flexible enough to respond to
many contingencies. Such prepotent,
automatized behavioral repertoires can also
be activated by cues predictive of reward
(19,
23).
Addictive drugs elicit patterns of behavior reminiscent
of those elicited by natural rewards,
although the patterns of behavior associated
with drugs are distinguished by their power to supplant
almost all other goals. Like natural rewards,
drugs are sought in anticipation of positive
outcomes (notwithstanding the harmful
reality), but as individuals fall deeper into addiction,
drug seeking takes on such power that it can
motivate parents to neglect children,
previously law-abiding individuals to commit
crimes, and individuals with painful alcohol- or
tobacco-related illnesses to keep drinking
and smoking
(24). With repetitive drug taking comes
homeostatic adaptations that produce dependence,
which in the case of alcohol and opioids can lead
to distressing withdrawal syndromes with drug
cessation. Withdrawal, especially the
affective component, can be considered to constitute a
motivational state
(25) and can thus be analogized to hunger or thirst.
Although avoidance or termination of
withdrawal symptoms increases the incentive
to obtain drugs
(26), dependence and withdrawal do not
explain addiction
(7,
19). In animal models, reinstatement of
drug self-administration after drug cessation is more
potently motivated by reexposure to the drug
than by withdrawal
(27). Perhaps more significantly,
dependence and withdrawal cannot explain the
characteristic persistence of relapse risk long
after detoxification
(6,
7,
19).
Relapse after detoxification is often precipitated by
cues, such as people, places, paraphernalia,
or bodily feelings associated with prior drug
use
(6,
7) and also by stress
(28). Stress and stress hormones such as
cortisol have physiological effects on reward
pathways, but it is interesting to note that stress
shares with addictive drugs the ability to trigger
the release of dopamine
(28) and to increase the strength of excitatory
synapses on dopamine neurons in the ventral
tegmental area
(29). Cues activate drug wanting
(11,
30), drug seeking
(19,
31), and drug consumption. The
drug-seeking/foraging repertoires activated
by drug-associated cues must be flexible enough to
succeed in the real world, but at the same time,
they must have a significantly overlearned
and automatic quality if they are to be
efficient
(19,
23,
31). Indeed the cue-dependent activation
of automatized drug seeking has been hypothesized to
play a major role in relapse
(18,
19,
23).
Subjective drug craving is the conscious representation
of drug wanting; subjective urges may only be
attended to or strongly experienced if drugs
are not readily available or if the addicted
person is making efforts to limit use
(19,
23,
31). It is an open question whether
subjective drug craving, as opposed to
stimulus-bound, largely automatic processes, plays a
central causal role in drug seeking and drug
taking
(32). Indeed, individuals may seek and
self-administer drugs even while consciously resolving
never to do so again.
In laboratory settings, drug administration
(33,
34) and drug-associated cues
(35–37)
have been shown to produce drug urges and
physiological responses such as activation of the
sympathetic nervous system. Although a full
consensus has yet to emerge, functional
neuroimaging studies have generally reported activations
in response to drug cues in the amygdala, anterior
cingulate, orbital prefrontal and
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and nucleus
accumbens.
The Dopamine
Hypothesis
A large body of work, including pharmacological, lesion,
transgenic, and microdialysis studies, has
established that the rewarding properties of
addictive drugs depend on their ability to increase
dopamine in synapses made by midbrain ventral
tegmental area neurons on the nucleus
accumbens
(38–40),
which occupies the ventral striatum,
especially within the nucleus accumbens shell
region
(41). Ventral tegmental area dopamine projections
to other forebrain areas such as the prefrontal
cortex and amygdala also play a critical role
in shaping drug-taking behaviors
(42).
Addictive drugs represent diverse chemical families,
stimulate or block different initial
molecular targets, and have many unrelated
actions outside the ventral tegmental area/nucleus
accumbens circuit, but through different
mechanisms (e.g., see references
43,
44), they all ultimately increase synaptic dopamine
within the nucleus accumbens. Despite its central
role, dopamine is not the whole story for all
addictive drugs, especially opioids. In
addition to causing dopamine release, opioids may act
directly in the nucleus accumbens to produce
reward, and norepinephrine may play a role in
the rewarding effects of opioids as well
(45).
Recent work at the behavioral, physiological,
computational, and molecular levels has begun
to elucidate mechanisms by which dopamine’s
action in the nucleus accumbens, prefrontal
cortex, and other forebrain structures might elevate the
incentives for drug taking to the point at
which control over drug taking is lost. Two
important caveats in reviewing this research are
that it is always treacherous to extend what we
learn from normal laboratory animals to
complex human situations such as addiction
and that no animal model of addiction fully reproduces
the human syndrome. That said, the last
several years have brought important progress
in investigating the pathogenesis of addiction.
Dopamine Action: The
Reward Prediction-Error Hypothesis
The dopamine projections from the ventral tegmental area
to the nucleus accumbens are the key
component of the brain reward circuitry. This
circuitry provides a common currency for the
valuation of diverse rewards by the brain
(21,
46). Within the ventral tegmental
area/nucleus accumbens circuit, dopamine is
required for natural stimuli, such as food and
opportunities for mating, to be rewarding;
similarly, dopamine is required for the
addictive drugs to produce reward
(22,
39,
40,
47). The most obvious difference between
natural goal objects, such as food, and
addictive drugs is that the latter have no intrinsic
ability to serve a biological need. However,
because both addictive drugs and natural
rewards release dopamine in the nucleus accumbens
and other forebrain structures, addictive drugs
mimic the effects of natural rewards and can
thus shape behavior
(9,
22,
23). Indeed, it has been hypothesized
that addictive drugs have a competitive
advantage over most natural stimuli in that they
can produce far greater levels of dopamine release
and more prolonged stimulation.
What information is encoded by dopamine release? An
early view of dopamine function was that it
acted as a hedonic signal (signaling
pleasure), but this view has been called into question
by pharmacological blockade, lesion
(48), and genetic studies
(49) in which animals continued to prefer
("like") rewards such as sucrose despite
dopamine depletion. Moreover, the actions of nicotine
have always remained a mystery on this
account, because nicotine is highly addictive
and causes dopamine release but produces little if
any euphoria.
Instead of acting as a hedonic signal, dopamine appears
to promote reward-related learning, binding
the hedonic properties of a goal to desire
and to action, thus shaping subsequent reward-related
behavior
(48). In an important series of experiments
involving recordings from alert monkeys,
Schultz and colleagues
(8,
50–52)
investigated the circumstances under which
midbrain dopamine neurons fire in relation to
rewards. These experiments provided important
general information about dopamine inputs but not
about the different actions of dopamine on the
nucleus accumbens, dorsal striatum, amygdala,
and prefrontal cortex. Schultz et al. made
recordings from dopamine neurons while monkeys
anticipated or consumed sweet juice, a
rewarding stimulus. Monkeys were trained to
expect the juice after a fixed time following a visual
or auditory cue. What emerged was a changing
pattern of firing of dopamine neurons as the
monkeys learned the circumstances under which
rewards occur. In awake monkeys, dopamine neurons
exhibit a relatively consistent basal (tonic)
pattern of firing; superimposed on this basal
pattern are brief phasic bursts of spike
activity, the timing of which is determined by the prior
experience of the animal with rewards.
Specifically, an unexpected reward (delivery
of juice) produces a transient increase in
firing, but as the monkey learns that certain signals (a
tone or light) predict this reward, the
timing of this phasic activity changes. The
dopamine neurons no longer exhibit a phasic burst
in response to delivery of the juice, but they do
so earlier, in response to the predictive
stimulus. If a stimulus is presented that is
normally associated with a reward but the reward is
withheld, there is a pause in the tonic firing of
dopamine neurons at the time that the reward
would have been expected. In contrast, if a
reward comes at an unexpected time or exceeds
expectation, a phasic burst in firing is
observed. It has been hypothesized that these
phasic bursts and pauses encode a prediction-error
signal. Tonic activity signals no deviation from
expectation, but phasic bursts signal a
positive reward prediction error (better than
expected), based on the summed history of reward
delivery, and pauses signal a negative prediction
error (worse than expected)
(9,
53). Although consistent with many other
observations, the findings of these demanding
experiments have not been fully replicated in
other laboratories nor have they been
performed for drug rewards; thus, their application to
addictive drugs remains heuristic. It is important
to note that this work would predict an
additional advantage for drugs over natural
rewards. Because of their direct pharmacological
actions, their ability to increase dopamine
levels upon consumption would not decay over
time. Thus, the brain would repeatedly get the
signal that drugs are "better than expected."
Berridge and Robinson
(48) showed that dopamine is not required
for the pleasurable (hedonic) properties of sucrose,
which, in their investigation, continued to
be "liked" by rats depleted of dopamine.
Instead they have proposed that nucleus accumbens
dopamine transmission mediates the assignment of
"incentive salience" to rewards and
reward-related cues, such that these cues can
subsequently trigger a state of "wanting" for the goal
object as distinct from "liking." In their view,
an animal can still "like" something in the
absence of dopamine transmission, but the
animal cannot use this information to motivate the
behaviors necessary to obtain it. Overall, it
can be concluded that dopamine release is not
the internal representation of an object’s
hedonic properties; the experiments by Schultz et al.
suggest instead that dopamine serves as a
prediction-error signal that shapes behavior
to most efficiently obtain rewards.
This view of dopamine function is consistent with
computational models of reinforcement
learning
(9,
53,
54). Reinforcement learning models are
based on the hypothesis that the goal of an
organism is to learn to act in such a way as to maximize
future rewards. When such models are applied to
the physiological data described earlier,
pauses and phasic spiking of dopamine neurons
can be conceptualized as the internal representation
of reward prediction errors by which the planned
or actual actions of the monkey ("agent") are
"criticized" by reinforcement signals (i.e.,
rewards that turn out to be better, worse, or as
predicted). Dopamine release can thus shape
stimulus-reward learning to improve
prediction while it also shapes stimulus-action
learning, i.e., the behavioral response to
reward-related stimuli
(8,
9). Given the likelihood that addictive drugs exceed
natural stimuli in the reliability, quantity,
and persistence of increased synaptic
dopamine levels, a predicted consequence of these
hypotheses would be profound overlearning of
the motivational significance of cues that
predict the delivery of drugs. At the same time,
much remains unclear. For example, in the monkeys
studied by Schultz and colleagues, brief
bursts and pauses in the firing of dopamine
neurons served as a prediction-error signal. However,
drugs such as amphetamine may act for many hours
and would thus disrupt all normal patterns of
dopamine release, both tonic and phasic, to
produce a grossly abnormal dopamine signal. The
effects of drug-related dopamine kinetics on
reward-related behavior are only beginning to
be studied
(55).
A Role for the
Prefrontal Cortex
Under normal circumstances, organisms value many goals,
making it necessary to select among them. A
significant aspect of addiction is the
pathological narrowing of goal selection to those that
are drug related. The representation of goals,
assignment of value to them, and selection of
actions based on the resulting valuation
depend on the prefrontal cortex
(56–59).
Successful completion of goal-directed
behavior, whether foraging (or in modern
times, shopping) for food or foraging for heroin,
requires a complex and extended sequence of
actions that must be maintained despite
obstacles and distractions. The cognitive control that
permits goal-directed behaviors to proceed to a
successful conclusion is thought to depend on
the active maintenance of goal representations
within the prefrontal cortex
(56,
59). Further, it has been hypothesized
that the ability to update information within the
prefrontal cortex such that new goals can be
selected and perseveration avoided is gated
by phasic dopamine release
(8,
60).
If phasic dopamine release provides a gating signal in
the prefrontal cortex, addictive drugs would
produce a potent but highly distorted signal
that disrupts normal dopamine-related learning in the
prefrontal cortex, as well as in the nucleus
accumbens and dorsal striatum
(9,
19). Moreover, in an addicted person, neural
adaptations to repetitive, excessive
dopaminergic bombardment
(61) might decrease responses to natural
rewards or reward-related cues that elicit
weaker dopamine stimulation, compared with drugs
that directly cause dopamine release; that is,
natural stimuli might fail to open the
hypothesized prefrontal gating mechanism in
an addicted person and therefore fail to influence goal
selection. The upshot of such a scenario
would be a biased representation of the
world, powerfully overweighted toward drug-related cues
and away from other choices, thus contributing to
the loss of control over drug use that
characterizes addiction. It is interesting to
note that initial neuroimaging studies reported abnormal
patterns of activation in the cingulate cortex and
orbital prefrontal cortex in addicted
subjects
(62–64).
Although far more neurobiological investigation is
needed to understand the effects of tonic and
phasic dopamine signals, the ways in which
addictive drugs disrupt them, and the functional
consequences of that disruption, current
understanding of the role of dopamine in both
stimulus-reward learning and stimulus-action
learning has several important implications for the
development of drug addiction. Cues that
predict drug availability would take on
enormous incentive salience, through dopamine actions
in the nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex,
and drug-seeking behavioral repertoires would
be powerfully consolidated by dopamine
actions in the prefrontal cortex and dorsal striatum
(9,
18,
19,
23,
65).
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Implications of the Specificity of
Drug-Associated Cues |
Stimulus-reward and stimulus-action learning associate
specific cues, occurring within specific
contexts, with particular effects such as
"wanting" a reward, taking action to gain the reward,
and consumption of the reward. (An important
aspect of context is whether the cue is
delivered more or less proximate to the
reward
[66]; for example, experiencing a drug-associated
cue in a laboratory has a different
implication for action than experiencing the
same cue on the street.) Learning the significance
of a cue and connecting that information with an
appropriate response require the storage of
specific patterns of information in the
brain. This stored information must provide internal
representations of the reward-related stimulus,
its valuation, and a series of action
sequences so that the cue can trigger an
effective and efficient behavioral response
(19). The same must be true for aversive
cues that signal danger.
If the prediction-error hypothesis of dopamine action is
correct, phasic dopamine is required for the
brain to update the predictive significance
of cues. If the dopamine-gating hypothesis of prefrontal
cortex function is correct, phasic dopamine is
required to update goal selection. In either
case, however, dopamine provides general
information about the motivational state of the
organism; dopamine neurons do not specify
detailed information about reward-related
percepts, plans, or actions. The architecture of the
dopamine system—a relatively small number of
cell bodies located in the midbrain that may
fire collectively and project widely
throughout the forebrain, with single neurons
innervating multiple targets—is not conducive
to the storage of precise information
(67). Instead, this "spraylike" architecture is
ideal for coordinating responses to salient
stimuli across the many brain circuits that
do support precise representations of sensory
information or of action sequences. Precise
information about a stimulus and what it
predicts (e.g., that a certain alley, a certain
ritual, or a certain odor—but not a closely
related odor—predicts drug delivery) is
dependent on sensory and memory systems that
record the details of experience with high fidelity.
Specific information about cues, the
evaluation of their significance, and learned
motor responses depend on circuits that support
precise point-to-point neurotransmission and
utilize excitatory neurotransmitters such as
glutamate. Thus, it is the associative
interaction between glutamate and dopamine neurons in
such functionally diverse structures as the
nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex,
amygdala, and dorsal striatum
(68,
69) that brings together specific sensory
information or specific action sequences with
information about the motivational state of the organism
and the incentive salience of cues in the
environment. The functional requirements for
recording detailed information about reward-related
stimuli and action responses are likely to be
similar to those underlying other forms of
associative long-term memory, from which
follows directly the hypothesis that addiction
represents a pathological hijacking of memory
systems related to reward
(11,
19).
Robinson and Berridge
(30,
70) proposed an alternative view—the
incentive sensitization hypothesis of addiction. In this
view, daily drug administration produces
tolerance to some drug effects but
progressive enhancement—or sensitization—of
others
(71). For example, in rats, daily injection of
cocaine or amphetamine produces a progressive
increase in locomotor activity. Sensitization
is an attractive model for addiction because
sensitization is long-lived process and because some
forms of sensitization can be expressed in a
context-dependent manner
(72). Thus, for example, if rats receive a daily
amphetamine injection in a test cage rather
than their home cages, they exhibit
sensitized locomotor behavior when placed again in that
test cage. The incentive sensitization theory
posits that just as locomotor behavior can be
sensitized, repeated drug administration
sensitizes a neural system that assigns incentive
salience (as opposed to hedonic value or
"liking") to drugs and drug-related cues.
This incentive salience would lead to intense "wanting"
of drugs that could be activated by
drug-associated cues
(30,
70). In the main, the incentive sensitization view
is consistent with the view that dopamine
functions as a reward prediction-error signal
(9). It would also seem uncontroversial that the
incentive salience of drug-related cues is
enhanced in addicted individuals. Moreover,
there is no disagreement that the ability of these
cues to activate drug wanting or drug seeking
depends on associative learning mechanisms.
The point of disagreement is whether the
neural mechanism of sensitization, as it is currently
understood from animal models, plays a
necessary role in human addiction. In animal
models, sensitized locomotor behavior is initiated
in the ventral tegmental area and is then
expressed in the nucleus accumbens
(73,
74), presumably through enhancement of dopamine
responses. Given the relative homogeneity of
ventral tegmental area projections to the
nucleus accumbens or to the prefrontal cortex
and the ability of these projections to interact with
many neurons, it is difficult to explain how such
enhanced (sensitized) dopamine responsiveness
could be attached to specific drug-related
cues without calling on the mechanisms of associative
memory. Despite a still confused experimental
literature, recent evidence from a study of
gene-knockout mice lacking functional AMPA glutamate
receptors found a dissociation between
cocaine-induced locomotor sensitization
(which was retained in the knockout mice) and
associative learning; that is, the mice no longer
demonstrated a conditioned locomotor response
when placed in a context previously
associated with cocaine, nor did they show conditioned
place preference
(75). At a minimum these experiments underscore the
critical role of associative learning mechanisms
for the encoding of specific drug cues
and for connecting these cues with specific
responses
(19,
23). Even if sensitization were to be demonstrated
in humans (which has not convincingly been done),
it is unclear what its role would be beyond
enhancing dopamine-dependent learning
mechanisms by increasing dopamine release in specific
contexts. It is ultimately those learning
mechanisms that are responsible for encoding
the representation of highly specific, powerfully
overvalued drug cues and for connecting them with
specific drug-seeking behaviors and emotional
responses.
Finally, an explanation of addiction requires a theory
of its persistence. Many questions remain
about the mechanisms by which long-term
memories persist for many years or even a lifetime
(15,
16,
76). From this point of view, sensitized dopamine
responses to drugs and drug cues might lead
to enhanced consolidation of drug-related
associative memories, but the persistence of
addiction would seem to be based on the remodeling of
synapses and circuits that are thought to be
characteristic of long-term associative
memory
(15,
16).
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Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Addiction
and Long-Term Memory |
As implied by the foregoing discussion, candidate
molecular and cellular mechanisms of
addiction at the behavioral and systems
levels ultimately must explain 1) how repeated episodes
of dopamine release consolidate drug-taking
behavior into compulsive use, 2) how risk of
relapse from a drug-free state can persist for
years, and 3) how drug-related cues come to
control behavior. Intracellular signaling
mechanisms that produce synaptic plasticity
are attractive candidate mechanisms for addiction
because they can convert drug-induced
signals, such as dopamine release, into
long-term alterations in neural function and ultimately
into the remodeling of neuronal circuits. Synaptic
plasticity is complex, but it can be
heuristically divided into mechanisms that
change the strength or "weight" of existing connections
and those that might lead to synapse formation or
elimination and remodeling of the structure
of dendrites or axons
(15).
As has been described, the specificity of drug cues and
their relationship to specific behavioral
sequences suggest that at least some of the
mechanisms underlying addiction must be associative
and synapse specific. The best-characterized
candidate mechanisms for changing synaptic
strength that are both associative and
synapse specific are long-term potentiation and
long-term depression. These mechanisms have
been hypothesized to play critical roles in
many forms of experience-dependent plasticity, including
various forms of learning and memory
(77,
78). Such mechanisms of synaptic
plasticity could lead subsequently to the reorganization
of neural circuitry by altering gene and protein
expression in neurons that are receiving
enhanced or diminished signals as a result of
long-term potentiation or long-term depression.
Long-term potentiation and long-term depression
have thus become important candidate
mechanisms for the drug-induced alterations
of neural circuit function that are posited to occur
with addiction
(11). There is now good evidence that both
mechanisms occur in the nucleus accumbens and
other targets of mesolimbic dopamine neurons
as a consequence of drug administration, and growing
evidence suggests that they may play an important
role in the development of addiction. A
detailed discussion of these findings exceeds
the scope of this review (for reviews, see references
11,
79–81).
Molecular mechanisms underlying long-term
potentiation and long-term depression include regulation
of the phosphorylation state of key proteins,
alterations in the availability of glutamate
receptors at the synapse, and regulation of
gene expression
(78,
82).
The question of how memories persist
(15,
16,
76) is highly relevant to addiction and
not yet satisfactorily answered, but
persistence is ultimately thought to involve the
physical reorganization of synapses and
circuits. Provocative early results have demonstrated
that amphetamine and cocaine can produce
morphological alterations in dendrites within
the nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex
(83,
84).
An important candidate mechanism for the physical
remodeling of dendrites, axons, and synapses
is drug-induced alteration in gene expression
or in protein translation. At the extremes of
time course, two types of gene regulation could
contribute to long-term memory, including the
hypothesized pathological memory processes
underlying addiction: 1) long-lived up- or
down-regulation of the expression of a gene or protein
and 2) a brief burst of gene expression (or
protein translation) that leads to physical
remodeling of synapses (i.e., morphological
alterations leading to changes in synaptic strength,
generation of new synapses, or pruning of
existing synapses) and, thus, to the
reorganization of circuits. Both types of alterations
in gene expression have been observed in response
to dopamine stimulation and to addictive
drugs such as cocaine
(85,
86).
The longest-lived molecular alteration currently known
to occur in response to addictive drugs (and
other stimuli) in the nucleus accumbens and
dorsal striatum is up-regulation of stable,
posttranslationally modified forms of the
transcription factor FosB
(85). At the other end of the temporal
spectrum is the transient (minutes to hours)
expression of a large number of genes likely dependent
on activation of dopamine D1 receptors
and of transcription factor CREB, the cyclic
AMP-response element binding protein
(86). CREB is activated by multiple protein kinases,
including the cyclic AMP-dependent protein
kinase and several Ca2+-dependent
protein kinases such as calcium/calmodulin dependent
protein kinase type IV
(87,
88). Because CREB can respond to both the
cyclic AMP and Ca2+ pathways and can
therefore act as a coincidence detector, its
activation has been seen as a candidate for involvement
in long-term potentiation and in associative
memory. In fact, a large body of research
both in invertebrates and in mice supports an
important role for CREB in long-term memory (for
reviews, see references
87 and
88).
Given a theory of addiction as a pathological usurpation
of long-term memory, given the increasingly
well-established role for CREB in several
forms of long-term memory
(87,
88), and given the ability of cocaine and
amphetamine to activate CREB
(88–90),
there has been much interest in the possible
role of CREB in the consolidation of reward-related
memories
(11,
19). Direct evidence for such a role is still
lacking. There is, however, relatively strong
evidence linking cocaine and amphetamine
stimulation of the dopamine D1 receptor–CREB
pathway to tolerance and dependence. The
best-studied CREB-regulated target gene that
might be involved in tolerance and dependence
is the prodynorphin gene
(91–93),
which encodes the endogenous opioid dynorphin
peptides that are kappa opioid receptor agonists.
Cocaine or amphetamine leads to dopamine
stimulation of D1 receptors on
neurons in the nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum,
leading in turn to CREB phosphorylation and
activation of prodynorphin gene expression
(93). The resulting dynorphin peptides are
transported to recurrent collateral axons of
striatal neurons, from which they inhibit
release of dopamine from the terminals of midbrain
dopamine neurons, thus decreasing the
responsiveness of dopamine systems
(91,
94). D1 receptor mediated increases in
dynorphin can thus be construed as a
homeostatic adaptation to excessive dopamine
stimulation of target neurons in the nucleus accumbens
and dorsal striatum that feed back to dampen
further dopamine release
(91). Consistent with this idea, overexpression of
CREB in the nucleus accumbens mediated by a
viral vector increases prodynorphin gene
expression and decreases the rewarding effects
of cocaine
(95). The rewarding effects of cocaine can be
restored in this model by administration of a
kappa receptor antagonist
(95).
Homeostatic adaptations such as the induction of
dynorphin, which decreases the responsiveness
of dopamine systems, would appear to play a
role in dependence and withdrawal
(26,
96). Given the limited role of dependence
in the pathogenesis of addiction
(6,
11,
19,
27,
40), other studies have focused on
potential molecular mechanisms that might contribute to
the enhancement of drug reward (for reviews,
see references
12,
13). The best-studied candidate to date is the
transcription factor FosB. Prolonged
overexpression of FosB in an inducible
transgenic mouse model increased the rewarding effects
of cocaine, and overexpression of CREB and
short-term expression of FosB had the
opposite effect of decreasing drug reward
(97). In addition, a distinctly different
profile of gene expression in the mouse brain
was produced by prolonged expression of FosB, compared
to CREB or short-term expression of FosB
(97). The implications of these findings
are that at least some genes expressed downstream
of CREB, such as the pro-dynorphin gene
(93), are involved in tolerance and
dependence and that genes expressed downstream
of FosB might be candidates for enhancing
responses to rewards and to reward-related
cues. The analysis is complicated by existing
experimental technologies because all mechanisms to
artificially overexpress CREB markedly exceed
the normal time course (minutes) of CREB
phosphorylation and dephosphorylation under normal
circumstances. Thus, a role for CREB in
consolidation of reward-related associative
memories should not be discarded on the basis of the
existing evidence. New efforts to develop
animal models of addiction
(98,
99) may prove extremely useful in efforts to relate
drug-inducible gene expression to synaptic
plasticity, synaptic remodeling, and relevant
behaviors.
The dopamine hypothesis of drug action gained currency
less than two decades ago
(38–40).
At the time, dopamine was largely
conceptualized as a hedonic signal, and addiction was
understood largely in hedonic terms, with
dependence and withdrawal seen as the key
drivers of compulsive drug taking. More recent
efforts at diverse levels of analysis have
provided a far richer and far more complex
picture of dopamine action and how it might
produce addiction, but new information and new
theoretical constructs have raised as many
questions as they have answered. In this
review I argued that what we know about addiction to
date is best captured by the view that it
represents a pathological usurpation of the
mechanisms of reward-related learning and
memory. However, it should also be clear that many
pieces of the puzzle are missing, including
some rather large ones, such as the precise
manner in which different drugs disrupt tonic
and phasic dopamine signaling in different circuits, the
functional consequences of that disruption,
and the cellular and molecular mechanisms by
which addictive drugs remodel synapses and circuits.
These challenges notwithstanding, basic and
clinical neuroscience have produced a far
more accurate and robust picture of addiction
than we had a few short years ago.
Received Aug. 19, 2004; revision received Nov. 15,
2004; accepted Dec. 3, 2004. From the
Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical
School, Boston; and the Office of the Provost, Harvard
University. Address correspondence and
reprint requests to Dr. Hyman, Office of the
Provost, Massachusetts Hall, Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA 02138;
seh@harvard.edu
(e-mail).
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