Scientists have discovered a new mechanism for reactivation of addictive memories

Ping team from Fudan University's Institute of Brain Sciences/National Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology found a new mechanism for environmental clues to reactivate addictive memory. The results of the research were published
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there are several ways to effectively detoxify addicts, but even after a long period of detoxification, when detoxers encounter environmental clues, it is still easy to activate the memory of addiction, leading to drug relapse. Environmental clues about how to reactivate addictive memories have been a scientific concern for researchers.
Zheng Ping's team placed morphine-addicted mice in two boxes with different environments, and in one box, the addicted mice suddenly gave up morphine. At this point, the addicted mouse develops painful withdrawal symptoms, forms a withdrawal memory, and links the memory to the environment in which it is located. Later, the mouse is placed in the environment, environmental clues can reactivate the drug withdrawal memory, which can be shown as "escape" from the environment. The study found that when the mouse was put back into this environment, environmental cues could activate the neural loop of the pre-cortical cortical layer of the brain into the amygdala in both the cell body and nerve endings, where activation at nerve endings was caused by increased expression of the dopamine D1 in the area caused by multiple morphine use. Further mechanism studies have shown that the increase in the expression of the neural loop D1 subject is due to the significant inhibition of the D1 subject gene expression regulatory molecule miR-105 by the repeated use of morphine. If the miR-105 of the neural loop is raised, the expression of the D1 receptor at the nerve end of the neural loop can be inhibited, which significantly inhibits the reactivation of addictive memory by environmental clues.
These results suggest that environmental cues double-activating the neural loop of the pre-cortical cortical layer in the brain to the amygdala may be an important neural mechanism for environmental cues to reactivate drug withdrawal memory, and intervention in this process may be a new strategy to reduce environmental factors leading to drug resusction. (Source: Science Network Huang Xin)