The role of HINT1 protein in morphine addiction: An animal model‐based study

Drug addiction is a recurrent, chronic brain disease. The existing treatment methods have limitations, such as poor adherence and inability to completely avoid relapse. Histidine triad nucleotide‐binding protein 1 (HINT1) is involved in many neuropsychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia, pain, and drug dependence. Studies have confirmed that there is a genetic link between HINT1 and addictions such as nicotine and cocaine. However, there is no research on the role of HINT1 protein in morphine addiction at home and abroad. Thus, we designed this project by constructing different types of morphine addiction animal models, including conditioned place preference and behavioral sensitization. We comprehensively examined the participation of HINT1 protein in key brain regions associated with addiction, including prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, corpus striatum, and hippocampus, in different stages of different models. In addition, we used HINT1 knockout mice to establish the above models and physical dependence model to investigate the effect of HINT1 protein deletion on morphine addiction‐related behaviors. We found that HINT1 has varying degrees of involvement in different stages of multiple addictive animal models. The absence of HINT1 can attenuate morphine‐mediated addictive behavior to a certain extent and can alleviate the withdrawal symptoms of morphine. Histidine triad nucleotide‐binding protein 1 (HINT1) has different degrees of participation in different phases of multiple addictive animal models. The absence of HINT1 can attenuate morphine‐mediated addictive behavior to a certain extent and can alleviate the withdrawal symptoms of morphine.