ABSTRACT
In recent years, generalization of homologous recombination approaches in the mouse has been extremely fruitful for our general understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the acute and chronic effects of psychostimulant drugs. Indeed, this technique based on genetic manipulations provides advantages that overpass inconveniences from pharmacological tools and offers unexpected insights into the field of action of psychostimulant drugs. For example, the extremely sharp precision of gene invalidation surpasses the specificity of drugs that can be available for in vivo experiments, and this is especially important in the study of psychostimulants given that these drugs are not specific within the family of their target proteins. Also, even though the technique may be hampered by genetic heterogeneity and developmental adaptations bias, the everlasting consequences of the gene deletion together with the possibility of a reliable reproducibility on animal groups present a strong and exciting basis of investigation.
