Abstinence from cocaine intake induces changes in neuronal
activity in the BLA after 26-45 days of withdrawal, but not 1-3 days of
withdrawal
Previous studies have shown that chronic cocaine intake increases the
spontaneous firing rate of BLA neurons after 15 days of abstinence
(Munshi et al., 2019) and that the BLA is part of the regulating circuit
that decreases tonic DA (Chang and Grace, 2014). Here, we investigated
the firing rate and the percentage of spikes firing in burst of BLA
neurons in saline and cocaine rats after 1-3 and 26-45 days of
abstinence (Figure 3). An example of the location of the recording
electrode is presented inĀ Figure 3A. An example of spike doublet and
triplet (Rainnie et al., 1993) recorded from a putative projection
neuron (Washburn and Moises, 1992; Bienvenu et al., 2012) in the BLA and
an example of a spike shape (averaged over 5 minutes) are presented in
Figure 3B. We found a significant interaction between time and drug
effects fot the firing rate (Figure 3C, D) and the percentage of spikes
in burst (Figure 3 C, D) in cocaine WD26-45 rats. Post-hoc analysis
revealed a significant difference between saline WD26-45 and cocaine WD
30, saline WD1-3 and cocaine WD26-45 and cocaine WD1-3 and cocaine
WD26-45 for the firing rate and a significant difference between cocaine
WD1-3 and cocaine WD26-45 for the percentage of spikes in burst.