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.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 24, 2010
Accepted:
March 28,
2010
Received in revised form:
March 26,
2010
Received:
January 21,
2010
Identification
Copyright
© 2010 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
