CNS proteomes in alcohol and drug abuse and dependence

Abstract

Drugs of abuse, including alcohol, can induce dependency formation and/or brain damage in brain regions important for cognition. ‘High-throughput’ approaches, such as cDNA microarray and proteomics, allow the analysis of global expression profiles of genes and proteins. These technologies have recently been applied to human brain tissue from patients with psychiatric illnesses, including substance abuse/dependence and appropriate animal models to help understand the causes and secondary effects of these complex disorders. Although these types of studies have been limited in number and by proteomics techniques that are still in their infancy, several interesting hypotheses have been proposed. Focusing on CNS proteomics, we aim to review and update current knowledge in this rapidly advancing area.

Keywords::

• alcohol
• animal model
• CNS
• drug of abuse
• human brain
• proteomics

Financial disclosure

The authors have no relevant financial interests, including employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties related to this manuscript.