Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Balzaretti 9, 20133 Milano, Italy.
Section of Legal Medicine and LTTA Center, Department of Translational Medicine, University of Ferrara, 44121 Ferrara, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Jul 9;22(14):7397. doi: 10.3390/ijms22147397.
Synthetic cathinones have gained popularity among young drug users and are widely used in the clandestine market. While the cathinone-induced behavioral profile has been extensively investigated, information on their neuroplastic effects is still rather fragmentary. Accordingly, we have exposed male mice to a single injection of MDPV and α-PVP and sacrificed the animals at different time points (i.e., 30 min, 2 h, and 24 h) to have a rapid readout of the effect of these psychostimulants on neuroplasticity in the frontal lobe and hippocampus, two reward-related brain regions. We found that a single, low dose of MDPV or α-PVP is sufficient to alter the expression of neuroplastic markers in the adult mouse brain. In particular, we found increased expression of the transcription factor , increased ratio between the vesicular GABA transporter and the vesicular glutamate transporter together with changes in the expression of the neurotrophin , confirming the widespread impact of these cathinones on brain plasticity. To sum up, exposure to low dose of cathinones can impair cortical and hippocampal homeostasis, suggesting that abuse of these cathinones at much higher doses, as it occurs in humans, could have an even more profound impact on neuroplasticity.
合成卡西酮在年轻的吸毒者中越来越受欢迎，并且在黑市中广泛使用。虽然已经广泛研究了卡西酮引起的行为特征，但关于其神经可塑性效应的信息仍然相当零散。因此，我们让雄性小鼠接受单次 MDPV 和 α-PVP 注射，并在不同时间点（即 30 分钟、2 小时和 24 小时）处死动物，以快速了解这些精神兴奋剂对额叶和海马体（两个与奖励相关的大脑区域）中神经可塑性的影响。我们发现，单次低剂量的 MDPV 或 α-PVP 足以改变成年小鼠大脑中神经可塑性标志物的表达。特别是，我们发现转录因子的表达增加，囊泡 GABA 转运体与囊泡谷氨酸转运体的比例增加，同时神经生长因子的表达也发生变化，证实了这些卡西酮对大脑可塑性的广泛影响。总之，暴露于低剂量的卡西酮会损害皮质和海马体的内稳态，这表明在人类中更高剂量滥用这些卡西酮会对神经可塑性产生更深远的影响。
