Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-2021
Abstract
Factors such as stress and anxiety often contribute to alcohol-dependent behavior and can trigger a relapse of alcohol addiction and use. Therefore, it is important to investigate potential pharmacological interventions that may alleviate the influence of stress on addiction-related behaviors. Previous studies have demonstrated that the neuropeptide oxytocin has promising anxiolytic potential in mammals and may offer a pharmacological target to diminish the emotional impact on reinstatement of alcohol-seeking. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of oxytocin on stress-induced alcohol relapse and identify a neural structure mediating this effect through the use of an ethanol self-administration and yohimbine-induced reinstatement paradigm. While yohimbine administration resulted in the reinstatement of ethanol-seeking behavior, the concurrent administration of yohimbine and oxytocin attenuated this effect, suggesting that oxytocin may disrupt stress-induced ethanol-seeking behavior. The central amygdala (CeA) is a structure that drives emotional responses and robustly expresses oxytocin receptors. Intra-CeA oxytocin similarly attenuated the yohimbine-induced reinstatement of ethanol-seeking behavior. These results demonstrate that oxytocin has the potential to attenuate stress-induced relapse into ethanol-seeking behavior, and that this mechanism occurs specifically within the central amygdala.
DOI
10.3390/biomedicines9121919
Publisher
MDPI
Repository Citation
Ballas, H. S., Wilfur, S. M., Freker, N. A., & Leong, K-C. (2021). Oxytocin attenuates the stress-induced reinstatement of alcohol-seeking in male rats: Role of the central amygdala. Biomedicines, 9(12), Article 1919. http://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9121919
Publication Information
Biomedicines
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.