When using drugs of abuse, learned associations are formed between the drugs and stimuli present in the drug-taking environment. With continued use, these stimuli can become cues that promote drug relapse. We have identified sparsely distributed patterns of neurons in the brain called ‘neuronal ensembles’ that are selectively activated by drug-related cues and thought to encode the learned associations that mediate drug seeking behavior. The talk will discuss new approaches — Daun02 inactivation, FACS sorting of activated neurons, Fos-GFP and c-Fos-Tetop::iCre transgenic rats — that have been used to selectively target and study activated neuronal ensembles in models of conditioned drug effects and relapse.
