Estudo teórico da inibição do transportador de dopamina: comparação do efeito narcótico do açúcar com a cocaína

Abstract

Dopamine is an important neurotransmitter responsible for controlling movement, motivation and cognition. Recent studies described that excess glucose stimulates the brains of rats in the same way as illicit drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines. The main targets of these drugs are the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline. The biochemical process resulting from the reward mechanism and drug addiction is the inhibition of the dopamine transporter (dDAT), whose role is to remove dopamine from the synapses. This inhibition increases the concentration of dopamine in the brain and, in an excessive stimulus, can generate an irreversible change in dDAT's native functions. Cocaine is the main target of comparison in this work, because according to the literature it is a local anesthetic and a powerful stimulant of the Central Nervous System (CNS) with important sympathomimetic properties. In this study, we found that cocaine and dopamine have similar structures that make them compete for the same binding site on the dopamine transporter. This suggest that cocaine can affect the way dopamine function in the brain, interfering with its signaling. Understanding these interactions better could help in the development of treatments for substance use disorders and in the creation of new drugs that target the dopaminergic system. However, the simulation of the dDAT-glucose system showed substantially different interactions compared to those observed with cocaine