Background and Purpose
Incubation of craving is associated with temporal changes in the
activity of several structures involved in drug-seeking behavior.
Hypodopaminergic activity, responsible for negative emotional states,
has been reported in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) during cocaine
abstinence. The neuroadaptations underlying the VTA hyperdopaminergic
state after chronic cocaine are not well understood. In this work, we
investigated the potential involvement of a VTA inhibiting circuit
(amygdala-ventral pallidum (VP) pathway) in the hypodopaminergic state
associated with abstinence from chronic cocaine.