Generalization of effects of environmental enrichment on seeking for different classes of drugs of abuse.

Magdalena Sikora, Céline Nicolas, Marine Istin, Nematollah Jaafari, Nathalie Thiriet, Marcello Solinas
Behavioural Brain Research. 2018-04-01; 341: 109-113
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2017.12.027

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Sikora M(1), Nicolas C(1), Istin M(1), Jaafari N(2), Thiriet N(1), Solinas M(3).

Author information:
(1)Université de Poitiers, INSERM, U1084, Laboratoire de Neurosciences
Experimentales et Cliniques, France.
(2)Université de Poitiers, INSERM, U1084, Laboratoire de Neurosciences
Experimentales et Cliniques, France; Unité de Recherche Clinique
Intersectorielle en Psychiatrie à vocation régionale Pierre Deniker, Centre
Hospitalier Henri Laborit, Poitiers, France.
(3)Université de Poitiers, INSERM, U1084, Laboratoire de Neurosciences
Experimentales et Cliniques, France. Electronic address:
.

BACKGROUND: Addiction is a chronic disease characterized by persistent
vulnerability to relapse during abstinence. In animal models of addiction,
accumulating evidence suggests that exposure to environmental enrichment (EE)
during periods of abstinence can have curative effects on addiction and reduce
the risks of relapse. However, until present most studies have mainly focused on
cocaine. In this study, we investigated whether EE could have beneficial effects
on cue-induced seeking for several psychoactive drugs belonging to different
pharmacological classes such as methamphetamine (METH), heroin (HER) and
nicotine (NIC).
METHODS: After self-administration training of METH, HER and NIC, rats were
housed in enriched (EE) or standard environments (SE) for 21-28 days of forced
abstinence and then drug-seeking behavior was assessed in the absence of the
drug.
RESULTS: We found that, compared to SE housing, exposure to EE reduced drug
seeking behavior for all drugs tested.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that the anti-craving effects of EE are
general for a wide variety of drugs and support the hypothesis that
environmental stimulation may be a general intervention for attenuating relapse
in humans.