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Psychopharmacology (2013) 226:659672 DOI 10.1007/s00213-012-2750-9
REVIEW
Learning to forget: manipulating extinction and reconsolidation processes to treat addiction
Mary M. Torregrossa & Jane R. Taylor
Received: 28 January 2012 /Accepted: 13 May 2012 /Published online: 26 May 2012 # Springer-Verlag 2012
Abstract Finding effective long-lasting treatments for drug addiction has been an elusive goal. Consequently, researchers are beginning to investigate novel treatment strategies including manipulations of drug-associated memories. When environmental stimuli (cues) become associated with drug use, they become powerful motivators of continued drug use and relapse after abstinence. Reducing the strength of these cuedrug memories could decrease the number of factors that induce craving and relapse to aid in the treatment of addiction. Enhancing the consolidation of extinction learning and/or disrupting cuedrug memory reconsolidation are two strategies that have been proposed to reduce the strength of cues in motivating drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior. Here, we review the latest basic and clinical research elucidating the mechanisms underlying consolidation of extinction and reconsolidation of cuedrug memories in the hopes of developing pharmacological tools that exploit these signaling systems to treat addiction.
Keywords Addiction . Extinction . Reconsolidation . Cue . Reinstatement . Memory . Neuroadaptation
Introduction
Drug addiction is characterized by compulsive use in the face of adverse consequences and repeated cycles of abstinence and relapse. Environmental stimuli (cues) that are repeatedly associated with a drug are known to promote compulsive drug taking and craving and are a primary trigger of relapse (Carter and Tiffany 1999; Shalev et al. 2002; See 2002). Therefore, recent efforts to develop effective treatments for addiction have focused on manipulations of learning and memory processes involved in encoding cuedrug associations.
Under natural conditions, organisms learn about the availability of rewards such as food, water, and mates by their association with specific environmental cues. With repeated associations, the cues are sufficient to elicit emotional and physiological responses and approach behaviors. While it is advantageous for organisms to learn and remember cues that predict natural rewards, these circuits can become abnormally activated in the presence of drugs of abuse. Natural rewards and the cues that predict them increase dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex (Bassareo et al. 2002; Bassareo and Di Chiara 1999; Di Chiara 2002; Torregrossa and Kalivas 2008); however,...