Week 9 Article

The Vassoler paper comes as a very interesting read in examining the genetic changes that can be induced when the sires of rats have usage experience with cocaine.  First off, I appreciate the inclusion of the cocaine self-administration graph as the first figure.  The astonishing rates and increase in dosage over a two-month period reflects well on the danger the drug poses in human society.  After testing sires with similar doses to those found during self-administration, females offspring were found to have no significant differences in acquisition rates compared to their equivalents from control sires at either the high or low doses.  Only those from the high dose group showed a slight delayed increase in infusions, compared to the control, after day seven.  The male offspring interestingly enough showed a significant decline in acquisition rates if sired by a cocaine-experienced rat.  A similar pattern of results was found for breakpoint lever pressing measures of after how many presses a rat would stop taking cocaine.  The male offspring of high dose cocaine-experienced sires had significantly lower breakpoints than those sired by a control rat.  These results show the possibility of a reinforcement mechanism that could actual put male offspring of cocaine-sired rats at an advantage in fighting addiction to cocaine.  It is interesting and at first seems a little counterintuitive.  The epigenetic effect however comes across clear as the male offspring of cocaine-experienced sires are subsequently shown to express increased levels of BDNF proteins in the mPFC.  This appears to be linked with another positive association between AcH3 and BDNF promoters in the sperm of those sires.  Here Vassoler pretty effectively shows the biological influence and dependency a parent holds over their offspring.  The hereditary changes are almost immediately observable and furthermore showed to be reversible, which again speaks towards the hope a relatable human population has to overcome this issue.