Alcohol promotes dopamine release in the human nucleus accumbens
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Microdialysis experiments in rodents indicate that ethanol promotes dopamine release predominantly in the nucleus accumbens, a phenomenon that is implicated in the reinforcing effects of drugs of abuse. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis in humans that an oral dose of ethanol would lead to dopamine release in the ventral striatum, including the nucleus accumbens. Six healthy subjects underwent two [(11)C]raclopride PET scans following either alcohol (1 ml/kg) in orange juice or orange juice alone. Subjective mood changes, heart rate, and blood-alcohol levels were monitored throughout the procedure. Personality traits were evaluated using the tridimensional personality questionnaire. PET images were co-registered with MRI and transformed into stereotaxic space. Statistical parametric maps of [(11)C]raclopride binding potential change were generated. There was a significant reduction in [(11)C]raclopride binding potential bilaterally in the ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens in the alcohol condition compared to the orange juice condition, indicative of increased extracellular dopamine. Moreover, the magnitude of the change in [(11)C]raclopride binding correlated with the alcohol-induced increase in heart rate, which is thought to be a marker of the psychostimulant effects of the drug, and with the personality dimension of impulsiveness. The present study is the first report that, in humans, alcohol promotes dopamine release in the brain, with a preferential effect in the ventral striatum. These findings support the hypothesis that mesolimbic dopamine activation is a common property of abused substances, possibly mediating their reinforcing effects.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".