Researchers used single-nucleus RNA sequencing to compare transcriptional responses to acute cocaine in 16 unique cell populations from the brain nucleus accumbens. The atlas is part of a major study that used multiple cutting-edge technologies to describe a dopamine-induced gene expression signature that regulates the brain’s response to cocaine. The study shows neurobiological processes that control drug-related adaptations and reveals new information about how transcriptional mechanisms regulate activity-dependent processes within the central nervous system.

The atlas was just the beginning of a major study, published in the journal Science Advances, that used multiple cutting-edge technologies to describe a dopamine-induced gene expression signature that regulates the brain’s response to cocaine.

«These results mark a substantial advance in our understanding of the neurobiological processes that control drug-related adaptations,» Day said. «They also reveal new information about how transcriptional mechanisms regulate activity-dependent processes within the central nervous system.»

The approaches used in this study, Day says, may also help dissect the role of similar gene programs that mediate other types of behavior, memory formation or neuropsychiatric disorders.

The NAc is deeply involved in drug addiction, and detailed understanding of how drugs alter its neural circuitry to initiate addictive behavior can suggest new therapeutic interventions. The NAc is a central integrator of the brain’s reward circuit, and all addictive drugs acutely raise the level of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the NAc. Dopamine signaling during repeated drug use leads to widespread changes in gene expression, initiating alterations in neural synaptic circuitry and changes in behavior associated with drug addiction.

Previous studies of changes in NAc gene expression were only able to look at bulk tissue — a mix of many different cell types. When the Day lab looked at single cell changes by RNA-sequencing 15,631 individual rat NAc nuclei, they found a surprise. Only a small fraction of neurons in the NAc were transcriptionally responsive to cocaine administration — mainly a specific subcluster of medium spiny neurons that express the Drd1 dopamine receptor.

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Materials provided by University of Alabama at Birmingham. Original written by Jeff Hansen. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.