Potential use of dopamine partial agonists in cocaine addiction

Neuroplasticity in the mesolimbic dopamine system and cocaine addiction.

The main characteristics of cocaine addiction are compulsive drug use despite adverse consequences and high rates of relapse during periods of abstinence. A current popular hypothesis is that compulsive cocaine use and cocaine relapse is due to drug-induced neuroadaptations in reward-related learning and memory processes, which cause hypersensitivity to cocaine-associated cues, impulsive decisi...

Cocaine cues and dopamine in dorsal striatum: mechanism of craving in cocaine addiction.

The ability of drugs of abuse to increase dopamine in nucleus accumbens underlies their reinforcing effects. However, preclinical studies have shown that with repeated drug exposure neutral stimuli paired with the drug (conditioned stimuli) start to increase dopamine by themselves, which is an effect that could underlie drug-seeking behavior. Here we test whether dopamine increases occur to con...

Do dopamine partial agonists have partial efficacy as antipsychotics?

CNS Spectr 13:4 April 2008 279 NEW TREND IN PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY Dopamine (D)2 partial agonists (DPAs) activate D2 receptors in a manner that is less than the full agonist dopamine yet more than full antagonists (eg, most known antipsychotics). Various DPAs span the spectrum between full agonist at one end and antagonists at the other, with the antipsychotic aripiprazole close to the antagonist e...

Potential Cardiac Valve Effects of Dopamine Agonists

Use and misuse of opioid agonists in opioid addiction.

Although methadone (an opioid agonist) and buprenorphine (a partial opioid agonist) have evidence to support their use in treating opioid use disorder, they remain misunderstood and underutilized. In this article, we outline the risks and benefits of using these drugs as maintenance therapy in opioid-dependent patients.