Microarray analysis has been used to identify transcriptional changes in human neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder [8]–[12] and in association with specific abused drugs [13]–[16]. Missing from these studies, however, are microarray analyses of the general transcriptional features of drug abuse per se. To address this topic, we performed a microarray study of human postmortem aPFC from 30 control cases and 42 drug abuse cases with varied drug abuse histories. A series of cases with cocaine, cannabis and/or phencyclidine as the primary drugs of abuse were examined for common patterns of regulation of gene expression that would represent identifiable biological functions. By classifying consistently regulated transcripts into biologically-relevant functional groups, we identified decreased expression of transcripts involved in calmodulin-related signaling and increased expression of transcripts involved in lipid/cholesterol metabolism and Golgi/ER-related function as being common molecular features involved in multiple patterns of human drug abuse.
