Homer has been recently shown to bind to the endocytic protein dynamin-3, localized to dendritic spines, which physically links the endocytic zone to the PSD, and regulates AMPA recycling and synaptic strength (31, 32). Given the disturbance of Homer 1 b/c observed in heroin abusers, we reasoned that alterations in synaptic plasticity implicated in addiction could be related to the interaction between Homer and dynamin-3, not only the relationship between GluA1 and PSD-95. As such, we examined protein expression levels of dynamin-3 and observed a 40% increase in the lateral nucleus of heroin abusers compared to control subjects (F1, 33=7.32, p=0.011; Fig. 4). Moreover, dynamin-3 levels were positively correlated with Homer 1 b/c (r=0.52, p=0.005) in the heroin abusers, but no such association was evident in control subjects (r=−0.066, p=0.846). Considering that no study has yet to date examined the direct relationship of Homer and dynamin-3 in neuropsychiatric populations, we next sought to assess whether the correlative data reflected true disturbance of the physical interactions between the proteins. We thus carried out immunoprecipitation of the lateral amygdala samples with Homer
