Lipids and drugs of abuse. Life Sci 2005 Aug 19;77(14):1531-42
Date
06/11/2005Pubmed ID
15946699DOI
10.1016/j.lfs.2005.05.004Scopus ID
2-s2.0-23044494981 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 20 CitationsAbstract
Drug abuse continues to take an enormous economic and social toll on the world. Among the costs are reduced productivity, increased need for medical services and stress on families. Treatments that allow affected individuals to reduce compulsive drug use are lacking and novel approaches to their development will likely come from increased understanding of the consequences of chronic exposure to reinforcing drugs. The purpose of this review is to explore the role of lipids in drug abuse and to present a rationale for an increased focus on the interactions between drugs of abuse and lipids in the brain. Small molecular weight lipids function as neuromodulators in the brain and, as such, play a role in the synaptic plasticity that occurs following exposure to drugs of abuse. In addition, the membrane lipid bilayer consists of lipid subdomains and emerging evidence suggests that protein function can be altered by transient associations with these subdomains. Finally, lipidomics is a very new field devoted to the exploration of changes in cellular lipid constituents during phenotypic alterations. Enhanced research in all of these areas will likely provide useful insights into and, perhaps, therapeutic targets for the treatment of drug abuse.
Author List
Hillard CJAuthor
Cecilia J. Hillard PhD Associate Dean, Center Director, Professor in the Pharmacology and Toxicology department at Medical College of WisconsinMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
Arachidonic AcidsBrain
Cannabinoid Receptor Modulators
Humans
Lipid Bilayers
Neuronal Plasticity
Signal Transduction
Substance-Related Disorders
