Chronic morphine consumption decreases wheel running and wheel running-reinforced behavior in rats

The purpose of this experiment was to evaluate the effects of morphine self-administration on wheel running and wheel running-reinforced lever pressing in rats. The home cage was equipped with a bottle that contained either water, a saccharin-flavored 0.5-mg/ml morphine solution, or saccharin (0.25%). The bottle was available for either 1 or 3 h. The bottle was then removed, and 20-22 h after removal, the rats were moved to an operant chamber in which lever presses earned 15 s access to a running wheel (according to a variable interval (VI) 40-s schedule). The morphine condition was in effect for 69 days, and consumption gradually increased to a level of 67 mg/kg/day. During the morphine condition, wheel running and lever pressing decreased. Following the removal of morphine, (so that the home-cage bottles provided a 0.25% saccharin solution), the two instrumental behaviors increased to the pre-morphine (water) levels. However, the increases were not immediate, and in the first post-morphine session, lever pressing and wheel turning remained at the depressed morphine level. The post-morphine increase in lever pressing was substantially larger than the increase in wheel running. The results support the hypothesis that chronic opiate consumption reduces the frequency of some nondrug-related behaviors, and that this, in turn, increases preference for the opiate.