Endogenous Cannabinoids and Reward in Monkeys

Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Article Date: 08 Jun 2005 - 0:00 PDT

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The rewarding effects of exogenous cannabinoids such as 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) have been well studied inside and outside the laboratory.

It has been more difficult to establish whether endocannabinoids are actually involved in normal brain reward pathways. In this week's Journal, Justinova et al. tested whether squirrel monkeys would self-administer anandamide. transporters and subsequent intracellular The authors also tested the stable synthetic analog methanandamide.

Monkeys rapidly learned to press a lever to selfadminister intravenous anandamide or methanandamide with a pattern similar to cocaine.

Zuzana Justinova, Marcello Solinas, Gianluigi Tanda, Godfrey H. Redhi, and Steven R.

Goldberg Contact: Dawn McCoy
dawn@sfn.org
202-462-6688
Society for Neuroscience
http://www.sfn.org

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