| First Author | Araya A | Year | 2023 |
| Journal | Neuropsychopharmacology | Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 9 | Pages | 1367-1376 |
| PubMed ID | 36175550 | Mgi Jnum | J:348338 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:7640278 | Doi | 10.1038/s41386-022-01459-2 |
| Citation | Araya A, et al. (2023) Overexpression of wild type glycine alpha 1 subunit rescues ethanol sensitivity in accumbal receptors and reduces binge drinking in mice. Neuropsychopharmacology 48(9):1367-1376 |
| abstractText | The nucleus accumbens (nAc) is a critical region in the brain reward system since it integrates abundant synaptic inputs contributing to the control of neuronal excitability in the circuit. The presence of inhibitory alpha1 glycine receptor (GlyRs) subunits, sensitive to ethanol, has been recently reported in accumbal neurons suggesting that they are protective against excessive binge consumption. In the present study, we used viral vectors (AAV) to overexpress mutant and WT alpha1 subunits in accumbal neurons in D1 Cre and alpha1 KI mice. Injection of a Cre-inducible AAV carrying an ethanol insensitive alpha1 subunit in D1 Cre neurons was unable to affect sensitivity to ethanol in GlyRs or affect ethanol drinking. On the other hand, using an AAV that transduced WT alpha1 GlyRs in GABAergic neurons in the nAc of high-ethanol consuming mice caused a reduction in ethanol intake as reflected by lowered drinking in the dark and reduced blood ethanol concentration. As expected, the AAV increased the glycine current density by 5-fold without changing the expression of GABA(A) receptors. Examination of the ethanol sensitivity in isolated accumbal neurons indicated that the GlyRs phenotype changed from an ethanol resistant to an ethanol sensitive type. These results support the conclusion that increased inhibition in the nAc can control excessive ethanol consumption and that selective targeting of GlyRs by pharmacotherapy might provide a mechanistic procedure to reduce ethanol binge. |
