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conferenceseries
.com
Volume 09
Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy
Addiction Summit 2018
May 17-18, 2018
May 17-18, 2018 Singapore
8
th
International Conference on
Addictive Disorders and Alcoholism
Morphine-induced conditioned place preference increases dendritic spine densities and enhances
drug relaps
Mina Sadighi Alvandi
1,2
, Judith Homberg
1
and Yaghoub Fathollahi
2
1
Radboud University Medical Centre, Netherlands
2
Tarbiat Modares University, Iran
Statement of the Problem:
Drugs of abuse have the potential to produce structural and functional changes in the brain
that are implicated in learning and memory. Dendritic spines represent key components involved in these changes, as they
drive neuronal connectivity and synaptic plasticity. The overall aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of morphine-
induced Conditioned Place Preference (CPP) on the dendritic spine density in the ventral hippocampus, a region involved in
associative memory and emotional behaviors.
Methodology & Theoretical Orientation:
Male Sprague Dawley rats (320-400 g) were subjected to the morphine-induced
CPP test during 10 days, consisting of a pre-test, 8 conditioning trials and a post-test. During conditioning days, rats received
10 mg/kg morphine. After the post-test, rats were anesthetized and brains were removed. The brains were subjected to Golgi
staining to evaluate changes in spine density.
Finding:
The results showed that rats that received morphine exhibited more place conditioning as compared to saline treated
rats and rats that were exposed to the CPP paradigm without any injections. Locomotor activity did not change significantly
in these groups. The morphine-CPP group displayed a significant increase in spine density as compared to the saline-CPP and
CPP without injection groups in the dentate gyrus and CA1 area of the ventral hippocampus.
Conclusion & Significance:
In conclusion, our findings support the idea that morphine-induced reward-related memory is
associated with synaptic plasticity changes by up-regulation of spine density in the ventral hippocampus. Such neural changes
could underlie contextual cue-induced drug relapse in morphine exposure subjects.
mina_sadighi@yahoo.comJ Addict Res Ther 2018, Volume 9
DOI: 10.4172/2155-6105-C1-037