Commonalities in addictive behavior, such as craving, stimuli-driven drug seeking, and a high propensity for relapse following abstinence, have pushed for a unified theory of addiction that encompasses most abused substances. This unitary theory has recently been challenged – citing distinctions in structural neural plasticity, biochemical signaling, and neural circuitry to argue that addiction to opioids and psychostimulants is behaviorally and neurobiologically distinct. Recent more selective examination of drug-induced plasticity has highlighted that these two drug classes promote an overall reward circuitry signaling overlap through modifying excitatory synapses in the nucleus accumbens – a key constituent of the reward system. We discuss adaptations in presynaptic/postsynaptic and extrasynaptic glutamate signaling produced by opioids and psychostimulants, and their relevance to circuit remodeling and addiction-related behavior – arguing that these core neural adaptations are important targets for developing pharmacotherapies to treat addiction to multiple drugs.

上瘾行为的共性，例如渴望，刺激性药物寻找以及禁酒后复发的高倾向，已经推动了一种包含大多数滥用药物的成瘾理论。这种单一理论最近受到了挑战-引用了结构神经可塑性，生化信号传导和神经回路方面的差异来论证，阿片类药物和精神刺激药的成瘾在行为和神经生物学上是不同的。最近对药物诱导的可塑性进行的更具选择性的检查表明，这两种药物类别通过修饰伏隔核中的兴奋性突触（奖励系统的关键组成部分），促进了整体奖励电路的信号交叠。