BACKGROUND A main challenge in the therapy of drug dependent individuals is to help them reactivate interest in non-drug-associated activities. Among these activities, social interaction is doubly important because treatment adherence itself depends on it. We previously developed a rat experimental model based on the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm in which only four 15-min episodes...

Animals return to rewarded locations. An example of this is conditioned place preference (CPP), which is widely used in studies of drug reward. Although CPP is expressed as increased time spent in a previously rewarded location, the behavioral strategy underlying this change is unknown. We continuously monitored rats (n = 22) in a three-room in-line configuration, before and after morphine cond...

Relapse prevention represents the primary therapeutic challenge in the treatment of drug addiction. As with humans, drug-seeking behaviour can be precipitated in laboratory animals by exposure to a small dose of the drug (prime). The aim of this study was to identify brain nuclei implicated in the cocaine-primed reinstatement of a conditioned place preference (CPP). Thus, a group of mice were c...

When rats and mice are free to explore a familiar environment they spend more time in a previously rewarded location. This conditioned place preference (CPP) results from an increased probability of initiating transitions from an unrewarded location to one previously paired with reward. We recorded nucleus accumbens (NAc) neurons while rats explored a three-room in-line apparatus. Before place ...

Lesions of the amygdala impair acquisition of a food conditioned place preference (CPP) task. In contrast, lesions of the fornix facilitate acquisition on this task, showing that an intact hippocampal system can interfere with learning an amygdala-dependent task. Our recent findings indicate that acetylcholine (ACh) release in the hippocampus increases while rats perform a hippocampus-dependent...

Re-exposure to cues repeatedly associated with methamphetamine (Meth) can trigger Meth-seeking and relapse in the abstinent abuser. Weakening the conditioned Meth-associated memory during cue re-exposure may provide a means for relapse-reduction pharmacotherapy. Accordingly, we sought to determine if the atypical antidepressant mirtazapine disrupted the persistence of Meth-induced conditioned p...

introduction: the hippocampus (hip), the primary brain structure related to learning and memory, receives sparse but comprehensive dopamine innervations and contains dopamine d1/d2-like receptors. it is demonstrated that dopamine receptors in dentate gyrus (dg) region of hip have a remarkable function in spatial reward processing. much less is known about the involvement of hip and its d1/d2 do...

The sigma1 receptor is critically involved in the rewarding effect of cocaine, as measured using the conditioned place preference (CPP) procedure in mice. Neuroactive steroids exert rapid neuromodulatory effects in the brain by interacting with GABA(A), NMDA, and sigma1 receptors. At the sigma1 receptor level, 3beta-hydroxy-5-androsten-17-one [dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)] and 3beta-hydroxy-5-...

Chronic pain is a major health issue and most patients suffer from spontaneous pain. Previous studies suggest that Huperzine A (Hup A), an alkaloid isolated from the Chinese herb Huperzia serrata, is a potent analgesic with few side effects. However, whether it alleviates spontaneous pain is unclear. We evaluated the effects of Hup A on spontaneous pain in mice using the conditioned place prefe...