Dopamine and Addiction Recovery: Heres What You Should Know About the Pleasure Chemical

These substances usually trigger the release of dopamine, the body’s “feel-good” neurotransmitter. Once a person does something that trips the brain’s reward center, they feel good and are more likely to repeat the activity. In summary, combined effects of alcohol and nicotine on the reward pathway may be a contributing factor to the high incidence of cigarette smoking in alcoholics. Moreover, administration of selective nicotinic antagonists might be of therapeutic potential in reducing the rewarding effects of alcohol and nicotine.

In this review, we will therefore focus on studies with clear face validity to the human condition, that is those using voluntary self‐administration. The mesocorticolimbic dopamine system (or the so‐called brain reward system, Figure 1) is one of the established neurobiological systems involved during the development and maintenance of alcohol dependence and thus one potential treatment target. Here, we aim to review the animal and human data describing the role of dopamine and the mesolimbic dopamine system during acute and chronic alcohol exposure. Finally, preclinical and clinical studies evaluating the potential of available dopaminergic agents as well as indirect dopamine modulators as novel medications for alcohol dependence are discussed.

Summary of findings

Furthermore, the balance of altered dopamine changes and subsequent effects on cellular excitability and fast synaptic transmission in the caudate and putamen will likely dictate the relative behavioral control by the associative and sensorimotor circuits. In this context, the decreases in release in the putamen of the repeated abstinence male monkeys may limit behavioral plasticity to a greater extent in this region relative to the caudate. This could be one factor contributing to the development of invariant alcohol consumption following long-term drinking with repeated abstinence observed in a previous study of cynomolgous macaques [8]. In this context, the different dopaminergic changes in actively drinking versus repeated abstinence males are intriguing.

• According to the World Health Organization, alcohol is responsible for 3 million deaths globally each year, which accounts for 5.3% of all deaths.
• Both studies demonstrated that quetiapine was well tolerated and in the latter study, the medication not only reduced alcohol consumption and overall psychiatric symptom intensity but also significantly reduced craving.
• A previous survey revealed that around nine out of ten smokers (87 percent) who quit smoking started again because of everyday “situational cravings” and more than three- quarters of smokers (80 percent) believe they could quit if they were able to get through their cravings.
• Furthermore, repeated systemic aripiprazole administration decreases alcohol intake in alcohol‐preferring rats [180], while single oral administration dose‐dependently decreases alcohol self‐administration in outbred rats [181].

First, dopamine alters the sensitivity with which dopamine-receptive neurons respond to stimulation by classical neurotransmitters, particularly glutamate.3 This mechanism is referred to as the phasic-synaptic mode of dopaminergic signal transmission. Second, dopamine can modulate the efficacy with which electrical impulses generated in dopaminergic or nondopaminergic neurons result in neurotransmitter release from the nerve terminals of these signal-emitting (i.e., pre-synaptic) cells. This presynaptic influence is part of the tonic-nonsynaptic mode of dopaminergic signal transmission. They will simply help you change your brain’s reward system, which correlates drinking or drug use with pleasure.

2. Atypical dopamine D2 receptor antagonists

The development of positron imaging technique (PET) and the radiotracer 11C‐raclopride in the 1990s made it possible to study in vivo dopamine function in humans. A series of human imaging studies over the last decade have demonstrated that alcohol [93, 94] as well as other drugs of abuse [95] increase striatal dopamine release. This is further corroborated by the findings that self‐reported behavioural measures of stimulation, euphoria or drug wanting by alcohol correlates with the magnitude and rate of ventral striatum dopamine release [96–98, 94, 99, 100]. These studies clearly substantiated the involvement of dopamine in the reinforcing effects of alcohol and closely mimicked the findings of the preclinical studies. Although the exact mechanism for the enhanced effects of the combined administration of alcohol and nicotine on NACC dopamine release is not known, it is very likely that multiple neurotransmitter receptors contribute to this phenomenon.

Based on the knowledge that alcohol can both stimulate dopamine activity as well as induce a hypo‐dopaminergic state, it has been suggested that partial agonists might have potential as novel medications for alcohol dependence. A partial agonist, such as aripiprazole, has a lower intrinsic activity at the receptor than a full agonist (e.g. dopamine), meaning that when it binds to the receptor, it will activate the receptor but produce a less potent biological response than the full agonist [175–177]. In the presence of high levels of the full agonist, a partial agonist will have functional antagonistic activity by binding to the receptor and preventing the response from the full agonist. Partial dopamine D2 agonists, therefore, offer the opportunity to treat the dysregulated dopamine activity during acute alcohol consumption as well as alcohol dependence. All three groups had similar dopamine release-levels in response to the alcohol, suggesting that alcohol-induced dopamine release is normal in AUD.

How Alcohol Affects the Brain

Neurobiologically, striatal dopamine alters intracellular signaling that affects synaptic plasticity [42]. Activation of D1 dopamine receptors increases the excitability of the direct pathway medium spiny projection neurons (MSNs) [59], while D2 receptor activation inhibits GABAergic synaptic transmission within striatum through presynaptic actions on indirect pathway MSNs. In addition, D2 receptors can alter striatal dopamine and acetylcholine levels and inhibit cortical glutamatergic transmission directly or indirectly [60,61,62].

These data are supported by the findings that olanzapine reduces craving for alcohol at baseline for both individuals with the DRD4 shorter and longer allele, but only reduces craving after exposure to alcohol cues and after a priming dose of alcohol for individuals with the DRD4 longer allele [166]. Overall, the results from studies evaluating olanzapine as a potential medication for alcohol dependence have provided evidence of a marginal effect restricted to a sub population of patients (with the longer dopamine D4 receptor allele). In healthy controls, alcohol consumption stimulates dopamine release mediating its reinforcing effects.

On the other hand, aripiprazole did not interfere with the alcohol‐induced impairment in motor balance as measured by rotarod test [179]. Furthermore, repeated systemic aripiprazole administration decreases alcohol intake in alcohol‐preferring rats how does alcohol affect dopamine [180], while single oral administration dose‐dependently decreases alcohol self‐administration in outbred rats [181]. In addition, aripiprazole has been shown to reverse alcohol‐induced place preference and anxiety‐like behaviour in mice [182].

These data are contradictory to the findings showing that the dopamine D2 receptor antagonist into the anterior VTA did not alter alcohol intake in high‐alcohol‐preferring rats [142]. Therefore, mechanisms regulating alcohol reinforcement might be different in selectively breed high alcohol‐consuming rats compared to outbreed rats, and this should be investigated in more detail. It should also be mentioned that infusion of the dopamine D1‐like agonist SKF into NAc had no effect on alcohol self‐administration in rats [141]. Albeit the data are somewhat contradictory, it might be hypothesized that accumbal as well as ventral tegmental dopamine D2 receptors may regulate alcohol reinforcement in rodents. With regards to the VTA, both in vitro and in vivo studies show that alcohol increases the firing of dopamine neurons in the VTA projecting to NAc [75–79, 40]. Similarly, in a situation of synaptic transmission blockade, alcohol has been found to increase the firing of dissociated VTA dopamine neurons [76, 77] implying that alcohol activates ventral tegmental dopamine neurons independent of afferent signalling.

Alcohol consumption, blood ethanol concentrations, and drinking patterns

The results of this study indicate that systemic administration of combined alcohol and nicotine in rats, results in a higher release of dopamine from the nucleus accumbens shell compared to each drug alone. Moreover, the effects of such a combination on dopamine release can be blocked by pre-treatment with mecamylamine. These findings are consistent with our previous observation where a combination of systemic alcohol with central administration of nicotine into the VTA resulted in additive or exaggerated dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens shell (Tizabi et al. , 2002 ).

• So when you’re managing stress or anything to do with your mood, you can be sure that dopamine is involved.
• Investigations of the underlying dopaminergic mechanisms involved during the development and maintenance of alcohol dependence could identify novel targets.
• The mesocorticolimbic dopamine system has an established role in driving the rewarding sensations from natural rewards such as food, sex and exercise, which are important behaviours to ensure our survival [6, 7] as well as among drugs of abuse, including alcohol (for review see [8]).
• Neurobiologically, striatal dopamine alters intracellular signaling that affects synaptic plasticity [42].
• Although promising preclinical results, the majority of results from the clinical studies with dopamine‐acting medications have thus far been discouraging.