2005), Arc (Fosnaugh, Bhat, Yamagata, Worley, & Baraban, 1995), EGR1 (O’Donovan, Tourtellotte, Millbrandt, & Baraban, 1999), Homer-1 (Swanson et al., 2001), MKP-1 (Ujike, Takaki, Kodama, & Kuroda, 2002), Narp (Hyman & Malenka, 2001), NFκB (Ang et al., 2001), and CdK5 (Bibb et al., 2001). During the adaptive process, changes in the striatum take place in synergy with changes in other brain regions, particularly with changes in dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain ventral tegmental area where cocaine-induced glutamate release activates calcium–calmodulin-dependent protein kinases such as CaMKII which are involved in the process of behavioral sensitization (Fernandez-Espejo, Ramiro-Fuentes, Portavella, & Moreno-Paublete, 2008).
