Chunk #31 — 3 Neural Substrates for the Negative Emotional State Associated with Alcoholism — 3.1 Within-System Neuroadaptations that Contribute to the Compulsivity Associated with the Dark Side of Alcoholism
cocaine self-administration produces a 200% increase in extracellular dopamine (Weiss et al. 1992b) compared with ethanol which produces a 20% increase in extracellular dopamine in the nucleus accumbens (Doyon et al. 2003) and heroin (which does not increase extracellular dopamine in the nucleus accumbens) (Table 1). Such a relationship changes with the development of dependence and may change with genetic background (see Ramachandani et al. 2010, who demonstrated a nearly 200% increase with alcohol in animals that carried the OPRM1 118G variant).
