Cocaine Cues Drive Opposing Context-Dependent Shifts in Reward Processing and Emotional State

Prominent neurobiological theories of addiction posit a central role for aberrant mesolimbic dopamine release, but disagree as to whether repeated drug experience blunts or enhances this system. While drug withdrawal diminishes dopamine release, drug sensitization augments mesolimbic function, and both processes have been linked to drug-seeking. One possibility is that the dopamine system can rapidly switch from dampened to enhanced release depending upon the specific drug-predictive environment. To test this, we examined dopamine release when cues signaled delayed cocaine delivery versus imminent cocaine self-administration