Publications [#185974] of Herbert E Covington, III

Journal Articles

1. LaPlant, Quincey and Vialou, Vincent and Covington, Herbert E. and Dumitriu, Dani and Feng, Jian and Warren, Brandon L. and Maze, Ian and Dietz, David M. and Watts, Emily L. and I{\~n}iguez, Sergio D. and Koo, Ja Wook and Mouzon, Ezekiell and Renthal, William and Hollis, Fiona and Wang, Hui and Noonan, Michele A. and Ren, Yanhua and Eisch, Amelia J. and Bola{\~n}os, Carlos A. and Kabbaj, Mohamed and Xiao, Guanghua and Neve, Rachael L. and Hurd, Yasmin L. and Oosting, Ronald S. and Fan, Gouping and Morrison, John H. and Nestler, Eric J. (2010). Dnmt3a regulates emotional behavior and spine plasticity in the nucleus accumbens.. Nature neuroscience, 13(9), 1137--1143. [20729844], [doi]
   (last updated on 2011/12/30)

   Abstract:
   Despite abundant expression of DNA methyltransferases (Dnmts) in brain, the regulation and behavioral role of DNA methylation remain poorly understood. We found that Dnmt3a expression was regulated in mouse nucleus accumbens (NAc) by chronic cocaine use and chronic social defeat stress. Moreover, NAc-specific manipulations that block DNA methylation potentiated cocaine reward and exerted antidepressant-like effects, whereas NAc-specific Dnmt3a overexpression attenuated cocaine reward and was pro-depressant. On a cellular level, we found that chronic cocaine use selectively increased thin dendritic spines on NAc neurons and that DNA methylation was both necessary and sufficient to mediate these effects. These data establish the importance of Dnmt3a in the NAc in regulating cellular and behavioral plasticity to emotional stimuli.