利用心得安阻断β-肾上腺素受体(β-受体),从而干扰药物成瘾患者对药物环境线索记忆的某些环节(如再巩固等),进而降低或抑制其对成瘾药物的渴求,已成为未来治疗复吸的潜在途径。但目前,心得安对吗啡相关环境线索记忆的获得及提取的影响尚不清楚。因此,该实验检测了心得安对小鼠吗啡诱导的条件化位置偏爱(conditioned place preference,CPP)环境线索记忆的获得和提取的影响。该研究首次发现在吗啡CPP记忆的获得期,心得安不影响CPP的表达和消退,提示β-受体不参与吗啡诱导CPP学习记忆的获得;而在吗啡CPP记忆的提取期,心得安可延缓CPP的消退,提示β-受体与吗啡诱导CPP学习记忆的提取相关。该结果表明,药物成瘾过程与β-受体相关,为成瘾等精神疾病的治疗提供了新的理论依据。
To interfere with the drug-cue memory processes of addicts such as reconsolidation by the administration of the β-adrenergic receptor (β-AR) of norepinephrine (NE) antagonist propranolol (PRO) has become a potential therapy in the future to decrease or inhibit relapse. However, the relationship between PRO and the acquisition or retrieval of morphine-cue memory is not clear. This study examined the effects of PRO on the acquisition and retrieval of memories in morphine-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) mice model. We found that during memory acquisition period, PRO had no effects on the expression and extinction of morphine-CPP, which suggests that the β-AR was irrelevant to the CPP memory acquisition. However, during memory retrieval period, although PRO did not affect the expression of CPP, but it delayed the occurrence of CPP extinction, which indicates that PRO has an inhibit effect on CPP memory extinction, and β-AR plays an important role in modulating the extinction of morpbine-CPP. Our study further improved the relationship between drug addiction and β-AR, and proposed a new theory to help developing potential therapy to cure addiction and other neuropsychiatric disorders.