The gene that regulates the body's main biological clocks also may play a pivotal role in drug addiction, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
The Clock gene not only controls the body's circadian rhythms, including sleep and wakefulness, body temperature, hormone levels, blood pressure and heart activity, it may also be a key regulator of the brain's reward system.
UT Southwestern researchers showed that, in mice, the Clock gene regulates the reward response to cocaine, suggesting that similar actions take place in humans. Findings from the multi-center study are available online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We found that the Clock gene is not only involved in regulating sleep/wake cycles, but is also very involved in regulating the rewarding responses to drugs of abuse," said Dr. Colleen A. McClung, assistant instructor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern and the study's lead author. "It does so through its actions on dopamine pathways."
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with the "pleasure system" of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment from certain activities. Dopamine is released by naturally rewarding experiences such as food, sex and the use of certain drugs.
In the study, mice that lacked the Clock gene were injected with cocaine. Not only did the mice experience problems with their circadian cycles – not sleeping as much and becoming more hyperactive – they also found cocaine more rewarding than control mice, demonstrated by their strong preference for the location where the drug was administered.