• Alperen Sozer, Mustafa Caglar Sahin, Batuhan Sozer, Ekin Sozer, Pelin Bayik, Nil Tokgoz, Hakan Emmez, Memduh Kaymaz, and Mesut Emre Yaman.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Gazi University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey. Electronic address: alperen.sozer@gazi.edu.tr.
• World Neurosurg. 2024 Sep 12.

ObjectiveAddiction is a serious spiral where negative events or relationships trigger a craving even when the situation is caused by the addiction in the first place. Nucleus accumbens is identified as an important hub for the neural pathways involved in the addictive behavior. Stimulation of this structure was demonstrated to be beneficial for addiction previously, but radioneuromodulation was never investigated until today. This study aimed to investigate if radioneuromodulation of the nucleus accumbens has any effect on alcohol addiction.MethodsAn addiction model was used on 36 Long-Evans rats (18 females/18 males), via a 2-bottle intermittent access protocol, and the trial group received 100 Gy of gamma irradiation to their bilateral nucleus accumbens. Rats were followed up for an additional 15 weeks. Multiple sets of a behavioral test battery, a 4-week abstinence period, and quinine adulteration challenges were used to evaluate responses.ResultsThe experiment showed that the intervention reduced alcohol preference in the presence of aversive stimuli in female rats, compared with the nonirradiated control rats, because the trial group showed a 9.83-point decrease in alcohol preference rate under high-dose quinine adulteration compared with baseline, whereas the control group did not show any decrease. There were also implications of additional benefits regarding weight control in females and behavioral tests in males. No evident adverse effect was observed with the treatment.ConclusionsThis study indicates that nucleus accumbens radioneuromodulation, although not significantly affecting baseline consumption, reduces intake when an aversive stimulus is involved, implying improved self-control.Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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