title: Substance-specific environmental influences on drug use and drug preference in animals and humans.
abstract: Epidemiological, clinical, and preclinical evidence indicate that the setting of drug use can exert a powerful modulatory influence on drug reward and that this influence is substance-specific. When heroin and cocaine co-abusers, for example, report on the circumstances of drug use, they indicate distinct settings for the two drugs: heroin being used preferentially at home and cocaine being used preferentially outside the home. Similar results were obtained in laboratory rats. These findings will be interpreted in the light of a novel model of drug reward, based on the emotional appraisal of central and peripheral drug effects as a function of environmental context. I argue here that drug addiction research has not paid sufficient attention to the substance-specific aspects of drug abuse and this may have contributed to the present dearth of effective treatments. Pharmacological and cognitive-behavioral therapy, for example, should be tailored so as to allow the addict to anticipate, and cope with, the risks associated, in a substance-specific manner, to the different settings of drug use.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, Rome 00185, Italy. aldo.badiani@uniroma1.it
authors.forename: Aldo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Badiani
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D002755:Choice Behavior; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; D004644:Emotions; D004777:Environment; D006801:Humans; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation