Female Sex Steroid Hormones Regulate Cocaine Addiction Through Cell Membrane Signaling Pathways

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Material below summarizes the article, Estradiol Facilitation of Cocaine Self-Administration in Female Rats Requires Activation of mGluR5, published on October 14, 2016, in eNeuro and authored by Luis A. Martinez, Kellie S. Gross, Brett T. Himmler, Nicole L. Emmitt, Brittni M. Peterson, Natalie E. Zlebnik, M. Foster Olive, Marilyn E. Carroll, Robert L. Meisel, Paul G. Mermelstein.

Drug addiction does not discriminate between the sexes, with both men and women showing comparable rates of addiction across a range of legal and illicit drugs. However, there is evidence that the ramping up of addiction from initial use to a clinical diagnosis occurs more rapidly in women for several different drugs of abuse, including cocaine. The female sex steroid hormone, estradiol, was identified early on as one factor driving this sex difference. How estradiol might be acting specifically in the brains of females, but not males, to drive this sex difference remains an unanswered question.

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