Cross-Sensitization
Between Drugs: A
Behavioral and Neural
Basis for "Gateway"?

Sensitization refers to the progressively enhanced behavioral and neural activation seen after repeated exposure to a single dose of a drug. The issue our participants will focus on is whether prior experience with one drug enhances the behavioral or reinforcing or subjective effects of another drug. This question is important in that cross-sensitization may be linked to an individual's increased vulnerability to drugs over time. This symposium will examine the clinical features of cross-sensitization between classes of abused drugs (i.e., stimulants and opiates), and describe clinical and preclinical data on mechanisms at the cellular and molecular levels underlying this phenomenon.

Agenda

1:00 pm	Harriet de Wit, Ph.D.	What is the evidence for sensitization in humans?
1:35 pm	Marilyn Carroll, Ph.D.	Factors that prime the initiation of drug self-administration
2:10 pm	Susan Schenk, Ph.D.	Sensitization as a mechanism underlying the progression of drug use via "gateway" drugs
2:45 pm	Break
3:00 pm	Paul Vezina, Ph.D.	Locomotion, nucleus accumbens dopamine and pursuit of drug in previously drug-exposed animals
3:35 pm	Peter Kalivas, Ph.D.	Neurobiological correlates of cross- sensitization
4:10 pm	Marina Wolf, Ph.D.	Sensitization and addiction: maladaptive forms of neuroplasticity?

View Abstracts

For additional information contact:
Nancy Pilotte, Ph.D; 301.435.1317
Minda Lynch, Ph.D.; 301.435.1322