Dose escalation and dose preference in extended-access heroin self-administration in Lewis and Fischer rats.

ABSTRACT:

Rationale

A genetic component may be involved in different stages of the progression of drug addiction. Heroin users escalate unit doses and frequency of self-administration events over time. Rats that self-administer drugs of abuse over extended sessions escalate the amount of drug infused over days.

Objectives

Using a recently developed model of extended-access self-administration allowing for subject-controlled dose escalation of the unit dose, thus potentially escalating the unit dose and number of infusions, we compared for the first time two genetically different inbred rat strains, Fischer and Lewis.

Methods

Extended (18 h/day) self-administration lasted for 14 days. Rats had access to two active levers associated with two different unit doses of heroin. If a r

SUBMITTER: Picetti R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3359091 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature