Key result
Mid-PVT salmon calcitonin reduces alcohol intake and dopamine release in male but not female rodents.
Why the study?
While amylin receptor activation suppresses alcohol-related behaviours, the role of brain regions beyond the nucleus accumbens, such as the middle paraventricular thalamus, remained unclear.
Does salmon calcitonin infused into the mid-PVT reduce alcohol intake and related behaviors in rodents?
Does salmon calcitonin infused into the mid-PVT reduce alcohol intake and related behaviors in rodents?
Salmon calcitonin infused into the mid-PVT suppresses alcohol-related behaviors in male, but not female, rodents, potentially via calcitonin receptors on glutamatergic projections to the nucleus accumbens.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Strictly hypothesis-generating for treating alcohol use disorder; leaves open whether this sex.
BACKGROUND: Long-term alcohol consumption contributes to the development of alcohol use disorder (AUD), a complex disorder with multifaceted neurobiological underpinnings. One of these is appetite-regulatory peptides, such as amylin, where activation of the amylin receptor (AMYR) suppresses alcohol-related behaviours in rodents. Earlier research has pinpointed AMYR in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) as central for this interaction, where other brain regions most likely participate. One of these might be the middle part of the paraventricular thalamus (mid-PVT), a critical node in reward-related processes. We therefore accessed this interaction through a combination of behavioural, neurochemical, and molecular experiments. METHODS: Western Blot, immunohistochemistry, and RNAscope were utilized to identify the calcitonin receptor (CTR), the main component of AMYR, in mid-PVT. To investigate the effects of salmon calcitonin (sCT), a CTR and AMYR agonist, locally infused in the mid-PVT on alcohol-related behaviours in rodents, the intermittent alcohol drinking paradigm, locomotor stimulation test, and microdialysis setup were employed. FINDINGS: CTR was detected in the thalamus in male NMRI mice and in mid-PVT of Wistar and Sprague Dawley (SD) rats. Locally infused sCT into mid-PVT decreased alcohol intake in males (P = 0.0048), but not in female (P = 0.8982) Wistar rats. A pilot experiment indicated that CTR was co-localized with glutamatergic projections from mid-PVT to NAc in males, but not female SD rats. Moreover, in male NMRI mice, sCT into mid-PVT attenuated alcohol-induced locomotor stimulation and dopamine release in NAc. INTERPRETATION: In summary, sCT into mid-PVT suppressed alcohol-related behaviours in male rodents, potentially through CTR on glutamatergic projections to NAc.
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Aranäs et al. (2026) studied Alcohol use disorder. Salmon calcitonin (sCT) locally infused in the mid-PVT was evaluated on Alcohol intake (p=0.0048). Local infusion of salmon calcitonin into the mid-PVT decreased alcohol intake in male rats but not in females, and attenuated alcohol-induced dopamine release in male mice.
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