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Assessment of Cocaine-induced Behavioral Sensitization and Conditioned Place Preference in Mice
Published on: February 18, 2016
Concurrent choice for social interaction and amphetamine using conditioned place preference in rats: effects of age
Justin R Yates1, Joshua S Beckmann, Andrew C Meyer
1Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536, USA.
Background:
Social interaction can serve as a natural reward that attenuates drug reward in rats; however, it is unknown if age or housing conditions alter the choice between social interaction and drug.
Methods:
Individually- and pair-housed adolescent and adult male rats were tested using conditioned place preference (CPP) in separate experiments in which: (1) social interaction was conditioned against no social interaction; (2) amphetamine (AMPH; 1mg/kg, s.c.) was conditioned against saline; or (3) social interaction was conditioned against AMPH.
Results:
Social interaction CPP was obtained only in individually-housed adolescents, whereas AMPH CPP was obtained in both individually-housed adolescents and adults; however, the effect of AMPH was not statistically significant in pair-housed adults. When allowed to choose concurrently between compartments paired with either social interaction or AMPH, individually-housed adolescents preferred the compartment paired with social interaction, whereas pair-housed adolescents preferred the compartment paired with AMPH. Regardless of housing condition, adults showed a similar preference for the compartments paired with either social interaction or AMPH.
Conclusions:
Although some caution is needed in interpreting cross-experiment comparisons, the overall results suggest that individually-housed adolescents were most sensitive to the rewarding effect of social interaction, and this hypersensitivity to social reward effectively competed with AMPH reward.
