Microdialysis studies in animals have shown that addictive drugs preferentially increase
extracellular dopamine (DA) in the n. accumbens (NAc). Brain imaging studies, while extending …

Drug addiction can be conceptualized as a disturbance of behavior motivated by drug-conditioned
incentives. This abnormality has been explained by Incentive-Sensitization and …

Experimental impairment of dopamine function by 6-hydroxydopamine lesions or by
dopamine receptor antagonists shows that dopamine is involved in nicotine's discriminative …

The effect of various drugs on the extracellular concentration of dopamine in two terminal
dopaminergic areas, the nucleus accumbens septi (a limbic area) and the dorsal caudate …

We studied the effect of opiates acting preferentially on mu receptors, like morphine,
methadone and fentanyl (mu agonists) and on kappa receptors, like U50,488, bremazocine and …

The effect of the ip administration of ethanol on the release of dopamine (DA) and on the
output of its main metabolites, dihydroxyphenylacetic acid and homovanillic acid, was …

The nucleus accumbens is considered a critical target of the action of drugs of abuse. In this
nucleus a "shell" and a "core" have been distinguished on the basis of anatomical and …

Drugs of abuse share with conventional reinforcers the activation of specific neural pathways
in the CNS that are the substrate of their motivational properties. Dopamine is recognized …

Natural rewards preferentially stimulate dopamine transmission in the nucleus accumbens
shell. This effect undergoes adaptive changes (one-trial habituation, inhibition by appetitive …

… Gaetano Di Chiara and Alan North argue that both dopaminergic and nondopaminergic
systems are involved in opiate reward, and that opiate addiction results from adaptive and …