title: Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer in cocaine seeking rats.
abstract: Drug-associated cues are believed to be important mediators of addiction and drug relapse. Although such cues may influence drug-seeking behavior through multiple routes, it is their putative incentive motivational properties-their ability to elicit "craving"-that interests many addiction researchers. The Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer paradigm is commonly used to assay cue-evoked incentive motivation in situations involving natural rewards, but has not been widely applied to the study of drug self-administration. We used this paradigm to determine whether cues paired with intravenous cocaine could promote performance of an independently trained task in which rats self-administered cocaine by completing a chain of two different lever press actions, a procedure used to parse behavior into cocaine seeking (first action) and cocaine taking (second action). Rats showed significant transfer, increasing task performance during cocaine-paired cues. This effect was observed for both seeking and taking actions, although a trend toward greater cocaine taking was observed, a result that is consistent with studies using natural rewards. Our results demonstrate that cocaine-paired cues can provoke the pursuit of cocaine through a Pavlovian motivational process. This phenomenon may provide a useful new tool for modeling drug relapse, particularly as a method for targeting the response-invigorating effects of stimulus-drug learning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA. kahathaway@ucla.edu
authors.forename: Kimberly H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: LeBlanc
authors.forename: Sean B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Ostlund
authors.forename: Nigel T
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Maidment
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects; D003042:Cocaine / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000187:drug effects*; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000187:drug effects*; D003463:Cues; D018765:Dopamine Uptake Inhibitors / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D058999:Drug-Seeking Behavior / Q000187:drug effects*; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000187:drug effects; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000187:drug effects; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000187:drug effects; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D012646:Self Administration; D013239:Stereotyped Behavior / Q000187:drug effects; D014163:Transfer, Psychology / Q000187:drug effects*
chemical_list: D018765:Dopamine Uptake Inhibitors; D003042:Cocaine