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Updated: Sep 18, 2025
A Procedure to Study the Effect of Prolonged Food Restriction on Heroin Seeking in Abstinent Rats
Published on: November 11, 2013
Sex-dependent effects of food-restriction on cocaine self-administration and cocaine-seeking in rats
Alixandria T Mascarin1, Ava M Mac1, Srinivasu Kallakuri1
1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, United States.
Introduction:
Misuse of drugs and natural rewards, such as food, share common neural pathways and comparably influence behavioral consequences. Food-restriction enhances drug-taking and drug-seeking behaviors in animals, but the effect of food-restriction on cocaine self-administration and cocaine-seeking in both sexes has not been well characterized.
Methods:
Therefore, the present study investigated differences between food-restricted vs. ad libitum-feeding male and female Wistar rats on the acquisition of cocaine self-administration and cue-induced reinstatement of cocaine-seeking.
Results:
Food access sex-dependently altered the acquisition of cocaine self-administration such that food-restricted females, but not males, displayed an escalated intake behavior over time. Only food-restricted females differed significantly between active and inactive lever pressing during the reinstatement of cocaine-seeking session.
Discussion:
Taken together, these results suggest that food-restriction sex-dependently improves learning of cocaine self-administration that persists to alter cocaine-seeking behavior following abstinence.
