IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v15y2018i10p2098-d171824.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Epigenetic Effects of Drugs of Abuse

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Heinbockel

    (Department of Anatomy, Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC 20059, USA)

  • Antonei B. Csoka

    (Department of Anatomy, Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC 20059, USA)

Abstract

Drug addiction affects a large extent of young people and disadvantaged populations. Drugs of abuse impede brain circuits or affect the functionality of brain circuits and interfere with bodily functions. Cannabinoids (Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol) form key constituents of marijuana derived from the cannabis plant. Marijuana is a frequently used illegal drug in the USA. Here, we review the effects of cannabinoids at the epigenetic level and the potential role of these epigenetic effects in health and disease. Epigenetics is the study of alterations in gene expression that are transmitted across generations and take place without an alteration in DNA sequence, but are due to modulation of chromatin associated factors by environmental effects. Epigenetics is now known to offer an extra mechanism of control over transcription and how genes are expressed. Insights from research at the genetic and epigenetic level potentially provide venues that allow the translation of the biology of abused drugs to new means of how to treat marijuana substance use disorder or other addictions using pharmacotherapeutic tools.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Heinbockel & Antonei B. Csoka, 2018. "Epigenetic Effects of Drugs of Abuse," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-7, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:10:p:2098-:d:171824
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2098/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2098/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adam J. Granger & Yun Shi & Wei Lu & Manuel Cerpas & Roger A. Nicoll, 2013. "LTP requires a reserve pool of glutamate receptors independent of subunit type," Nature, Nature, vol. 493(7433), pages 495-500, January.
    2. Eric D. Green & James D. Watson & Francis S. Collins, 2015. "Human Genome Project: Twenty-five years of big biology," Nature, Nature, vol. 526(7571), pages 29-31, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhang, Yang & Wang, Yang & Du, Haifeng & Havlin, Shlomo, 2024. "Delayed citation impact of interdisciplinary research," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1).
    2. Yiling Lin & Carl Benedikt Frey & Lingfei Wu, 2022. "Remote Collaboration Fuses Fewer Breakthrough Ideas," Papers 2206.01878, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    3. Yuni Kay & Linda Tsan & Elizabeth A. Davis & Chen Tian & Léa Décarie-Spain & Anastasiia Sadybekov & Anna N. Pushkin & Vsevolod Katritch & Scott E. Kanoski & Bruce E. Herring, 2022. "Schizophrenia-associated SAP97 mutations increase glutamatergic synapse strength in the dentate gyrus and impair contextual episodic memory in rats," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:10:p:2098-:d:171824. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.