CUADRA GABRIEL RICARDO
Congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Early undernutrition and pharmacological reactivity to drugs of abuse. Symposium: Nutrition and neural functions
Autor/es:
CUADRA GR
Lugar:
Ribeirao Preto, Brasil.
Reunión:
Simposio; XXI Congreso de la Asociación Latino Americana de Ciencias Fisiológicas; 2003
Institución organizadora:
Asociación Latino Americana de Ciencias Fisiológicas - ALACF
Resumen:
Early undernutrition and the increasing use of drugs of abuse represent two major problems with sanitary and socioeconomic implication in the present world. This fact justify the development of experimental models in order to study alterations in the CNS induced by early undernutrion as well as the pharmacological reactivity to drugs acting on specific neuronal pathways. In the present article we comment results obtained using a model of perinatal undernutrition, in which the reactivity to different drugs that induce dependence was evaluated. The effect of the nutritional injury on the stimulant and rewarding effects of cocaine as well as the behavioral sensitization phenomenon was studied. Furthermore, the functional state of the dopaminergic mesolimbic pathway involved in such processes and the expression of the ÄFosB transcription factor in different areas from the neural reward circuit were analyzed. The present results demonstrate that early malnutrition provokes a higher reactivity to the cocaine?s reinforcement effects, as well as development of sensitization to the motor and rewarding effects with significantly lower doses that those necessary to induce such phenomena in controls. Behavioral alterations were correlated with an increased activity in the mesolimbic pathway, as well as with an over-expression of DFosB in selective brain areas related to the reward pathway.
