The role of metabotropic glutamate 5 receptor in addiction

Abstract

A central problem facing the treatment of drug addiction is the enduring vulnerability to relapse by users, despite months or even years of abstinence. Therefore, it has been proposed that extinction, which involves learning to inhibit drug-seeking responses driven by drug-related cues and environments, may be more effective compared to abstinence as a potential treatment of drug addiction. Because extinction is an active learning process, it involves neurobiological substrates that subserve normal learning and memory, including increased transmission and plasticity at central glutamatergic synapses. In particular, accumulating evidence suggests that metabotropic glutamate 5 (mGlu5) receptor..