Monday’s sessions of the annual ASEMV 2019 meeting at Asilomar, in Pacific Grove, California, featured many exciting presentations. Among the 16 talks of the day, five were of particular interest. The first, “Methamphetamine Use Disorder Alters Plasma EV MicroRNA Expression,” was presented by Ursula Sandau, PhD, of Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Sandau noted that methamphetamine has deleterious effects to both peripheral organs and the central nervous system. The rewarding properties and addictive potential of methamphetamine are correlated with increased synaptic dopamine availability following alterations in dopamine and vesicular monamine transporter function. She reported results demonstrating that EV miRNA expression in subjects with methamphetamine use disorder was significantly different than in control participants, suggesting that methamphetamine may affect EV communication among cells. Dr. Sandau further noted that the differential miRNA expression also implicates a role for EVs in behavioral and physiological effects specific to methamphetamine and suggests that there may be changes in expression of miRNAs that are relevant to specific drugs of addiction, as well as to a spectrum of drug-mediated addiction disorders. In another compelling presentation, Franklin Monzon, PhD, of Spectradyne Particle Analysis (https://nanoparticleanalyzer.com/), spoke on “The Importance of Orthogonal Techniques in Quantifying Extracellular Vesicles.” Dr. Monson noted that, as EV research matures, so must the relevant measurement technologies.Login Or Register To Read Full Story