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The Use of Drosophila to Understand Psychostimulant Responses

The addictive properties of psychostimulants such as cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, and methylphenidate are based on their ability to increase dopaminergic neurotransmission in the reward system. While cocaine and methamphetamine are predominately used recreationally, amphetamine and methylp...

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Autores principales: Philyaw, Travis James, Rothenfluh, Adrian, Titos, Iris
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8773124/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35052798
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines10010119
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author Philyaw, Travis James
Rothenfluh, Adrian
Titos, Iris
author_facet Philyaw, Travis James
Rothenfluh, Adrian
Titos, Iris
author_sort Philyaw, Travis James
collection PubMed
description The addictive properties of psychostimulants such as cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, and methylphenidate are based on their ability to increase dopaminergic neurotransmission in the reward system. While cocaine and methamphetamine are predominately used recreationally, amphetamine and methylphenidate also work as effective therapeutics to treat symptoms of disorders including attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although both the addictive properties of psychostimulant drugs and their therapeutic efficacy are influenced by genetic variation, very few genes that regulate these processes in humans have been identified. This is largely due to population heterogeneity which entails a requirement for large samples. Drosophila melanogaster exhibits similar psychostimulant responses to humans, a high degree of gene conservation, and allow performance of behavioral assays in a large population. Additionally, amphetamine and methylphenidate reduce impairments in fly models of ADHD-like behavior. Therefore, Drosophila represents an ideal translational model organism to tackle the genetic components underlying the effects of psychostimulants. Here, we break down the many assays that reliably quantify the effects of cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, and methylphenidate in Drosophila. We also discuss how Drosophila is an efficient and cost-effective model organism for identifying novel candidate genes and molecular mechanisms involved in the behavioral responses to psychostimulant drugs.
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spelling pubmed-87731242022-01-21 The Use of Drosophila to Understand Psychostimulant Responses Philyaw, Travis James Rothenfluh, Adrian Titos, Iris Biomedicines Review The addictive properties of psychostimulants such as cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, and methylphenidate are based on their ability to increase dopaminergic neurotransmission in the reward system. While cocaine and methamphetamine are predominately used recreationally, amphetamine and methylphenidate also work as effective therapeutics to treat symptoms of disorders including attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although both the addictive properties of psychostimulant drugs and their therapeutic efficacy are influenced by genetic variation, very few genes that regulate these processes in humans have been identified. This is largely due to population heterogeneity which entails a requirement for large samples. Drosophila melanogaster exhibits similar psychostimulant responses to humans, a high degree of gene conservation, and allow performance of behavioral assays in a large population. Additionally, amphetamine and methylphenidate reduce impairments in fly models of ADHD-like behavior. Therefore, Drosophila represents an ideal translational model organism to tackle the genetic components underlying the effects of psychostimulants. Here, we break down the many assays that reliably quantify the effects of cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, and methylphenidate in Drosophila. We also discuss how Drosophila is an efficient and cost-effective model organism for identifying novel candidate genes and molecular mechanisms involved in the behavioral responses to psychostimulant drugs. MDPI 2022-01-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8773124/ /pubmed/35052798 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines10010119 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Philyaw, Travis James
Rothenfluh, Adrian
Titos, Iris
The Use of Drosophila to Understand Psychostimulant Responses
title The Use of Drosophila to Understand Psychostimulant Responses
title_full The Use of Drosophila to Understand Psychostimulant Responses
title_fullStr The Use of Drosophila to Understand Psychostimulant Responses
title_full_unstemmed The Use of Drosophila to Understand Psychostimulant Responses
title_short The Use of Drosophila to Understand Psychostimulant Responses
title_sort use of drosophila to understand psychostimulant responses
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8773124/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35052798
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines10010119
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