CART: A NOVEL COCAINE REGULATED NEUROCHEMICAL

该子项目是利用NIH/NCRR资助的中心赠款提供的资源的许多研究子项目之一。子项目和研究者（PI）可能从另一个NIH来源获得主要资金，因此可以在其他CRISP条目中表示。所列机构为中心，不一定是研究者所在机构。在过去一年中取得了非常重大的进展。主要发现是通过信号传导和结合在AtT 20细胞中鉴定CART受体。这一进展将允许在受体上筛选潜在的药物，并为克隆受体提供工具。此外，我们还提供了CART至少部分受皮质酮调节的证据，这可能有助于解释文献中的一些观察结果。CART在脑和血清中也表现出昼夜节律。正如预期的那样，CART基因敲除小鼠具有多种行为变化，这支持了许多论文，这些论文表明CART在许多生理过程中发挥重要作用。我们还发现了一个可能是重要的神经通路，从外侧下丘脑到腹侧被盖区的CART通路;这可能是摄食和奖励之间的联系，并部分解释了药物奖励和摄食奖励之间的重叠。许多新的实验现在是可能的，特别是在受体研究领域。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Very substantial progress has been made over the past year. The major finding has been the identification of a CART receptor in AtT20 cells by signaling and binding. This advance will allow screening of potential medications at the receptor and provide tools for cloning the receptor. In addition, we provided evidence that CART is at least partly regulated by corticosterone, which may help explain some observations in the literature. CART also exhibits a diurnal rhythm in brain and serum. As would be expected, CART knockout mice have a variety of behavioral changes which supports many papers indicating an important role for CART in many physiological processes. We also found what may be an important neuronal pathway, a CART-containing pathway from the lateral hypothalamus to the VTA; this may be a connection between feeding and reward and partly explain the overlap between drug reward and feeding reward. Many new experiments are now possible, particularly in the are of receptor studies.