title: Locomotor activity predicts acquisition of self-administration behavior but not cocaine intake.
abstract: The current study investigates locomotor activity in a novel environment and correlates these activity levels with cocaine self-administration in rats that were either trained or untrained on a lever-pressing task prior to cocaine self-administration. The authors report that it is the rate of learning the lever-pressing task, not cocaine self-administration, that correlates with locomotor activity. The results suggest that a correlation between locomotor activity and cocaine self-administration is secondary to a link between locomotor activity and rate of learning to lever press for a reward. The authors conclude that locomotor activity is not necessarily an indicator of propensity to self-administer cocaine and demonstrate that environmental novelty and rate of learning an operant task are important considerations when designing experiments on drug-seeking behaviors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA. juniper@itsa.ucsf.edu
authors.forename: Jennifer M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.forename: Chris L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Cunningham
authors.forename: Gregory P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Mark
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003042:Cocaine / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000494:pharmacology*; D003216:Conditioning, Operant; D018765:Dopamine Uptake Inhibitors / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D012646:Self Administration
chemical_list: D018765:Dopamine Uptake Inhibitors; D003042:Cocaine