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Review Article Open Access
Volume 4 | Issue 1 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.33696/Neurol.4.070

The Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA), the Nucleus Accumbens (NAc), the Caudate Nucleus (CN) and the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) role in the Response to Acute and Chronic Methylphenidate

  • 1Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Texas Health at the McGovern Medical School, 6431 Fannin Street, Houston TX 77030, United States
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Corresponding Author

Nachum Dafny, Nachum.dafny@uth.tmc.edu

Received Date: January 12, 2023

Accepted Date: March 09, 2023

Abstract

Methylphenidate (MPD) is psychostimulant, similar to cocaine and amphetamine, that is commonly used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and is increasingly being abused by healthy subjects for its psychoactive effects such as memory retention cognitive enhancement for young, adult and the elderly and recreation. MPD’s action on the brain reward/motive circuit is still under investigation, however it is known that in animals chronic use of MPD leads to behavioral sensitization, an experimental indicator associated with dependence. To investigate this neural circuit’s role in response to acute and chronic MPD, three different lesions (non-specific, dopaminergic specific, and glutaminergic specific lesions) have been conducted at the nucleus accumbens (NAc), the ventral tegmental area (VTA), the caudate nucleus (CN), and the prefrontal cortex (PFC), to assess the structure, dopaminergic signaling, and glutaminergic signaling roles in response to MPD. The three types of lesions show that each one of the above four brain areas participate differently in the acute and chronic effect of MPD and have helped determine which type of signaling is critical for the acute and/or chronic behavioral adaptions to MPD.

Keywords

Methylphenidate, Specific lesions, VTA, NAc, CN, PFC, Motive circuit

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