Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 12, 2026
Assessment of Cocaine-induced Behavioral Sensitization and Conditioned Place Preference in Mice
Published on: February 18, 2016
Persistent increases in cocaine-seeking behavior after acute exposure to cold swim stress
Kelly L Conrad1, James E McCutcheon, Lindsay M Cotterly
1Department of Neuroscience, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, The Chicago Medical School, North Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Background:
Acute and chronic stress reinstates drug-seeking behavior. Current animal models show that these effects are contingent (temporally, contextually, or both) on the drug-conditioning environment. To date, no paradigm exists to model the common human situation in which stressors that are distinct from the experience of drugs can lead to relapse.
Methods:
Rats were allowed to self-administer cocaine or saline over 8 days. They then underwent extinction training, during which responding was not reinforced with drug infusions. After 16 days of extinction, rats were submitted to a brief cold swim stress and then tested for seeking behavior (responding not reinforced with drug infusions) for 4 days.
Results:
All rats developed self-administration behavior. Following extinction, cold swim stress induced reinstatement of drug-seeking behavior in cocaine-trained rats, an effect that was still present 3 days after stress exposure.
Conclusions:
This study indicates that cold swim stress can have long-term effects on drug-seeking behavior and may provide us with a suitable model to study the latent effects of stress on relapse to drug abuse.
