Several psychoactive drugs can evoke substance use disorders (SUD) in humans and animals, and these include psychostimulants, opioids, cannabinoids (CB), nicotine, and alcohol. The etiology, mechanistic processes, and the therapeutic options to deal with SUD are not well understood. The common feature of all abused drugs is that they increase dopamine (DA) neurotransmission within the mesocorticolimbic circuitry of the brain followed by the activation of DA receptors. D2 receptors were proposed as important molecular targets for SUD. The findings showed that D2 receptors formed heteromeric complexes with other GPCRs, which forced the addiction research area in new directions. In this review, we updated the view on the brain D2 receptor complexes with adenosine (A)2A receptors (A2AR) and discussed the role of A2AR in different aspects of addiction phenotypes in laboratory animal procedures that permit the highly complex syndrome of human drug addiction. We presented the current knowledge on the neurochemical in vivo and ex vivo mechanisms related to cocaine use disorder (CUD) and discussed future research directions for A2AR heteromeric complexes in SUD.
Keywords: A2A-D2 receptor interaction; adenosine (A)2 receptors; behavioral effects; drugs of abuse; laboratory animals; neurochemistry; striatum; substance use disorder.