It is thought that rewarding experiences with drugs create strong contextual associations and
encourage repeated intake. In turn, repeated exposures to drugs of abuse make lasting …

Background The potential of abused drugs to induce addiction and compulsive drug-related
behavior is associated with their ability to alter dopamine signaling. Dopamine plays a key …

The development and maintenance of cocaine addiction depend heavily on learned reward-
environment associations that can induce drug-seeking behavior and relapse …

Neural and physiological factors underlying individual differences in the vulnerability to drug
abuse are the major questions remained to be determined. The present study described …

Animal models of reinforcement have proven to be useful for understanding the
neurobiological mechanisms underlying drug addiction. Operant drug self-administration …

Rationale Age of initial exposure to addictive substances is inversely proportional to risk of
developing drug dependence. There is debate, however, as to whether intake at a young …

Sensitivity to cocaine and its associated stimuli (“cues”) are important factors in the
development and maintenance of addiction. Rodent studies suggest that this sensitivity is …

Conditioned place preference and locomotor sensitization are rodent behavioral models
commonly used to investigate the actions of drugs of abuse. However, few studies have …

Cocaine use disorders (CUD) are devastating for affected individuals and impose a
significant societal burden, but there are currently no FDA-approved therapies. The …

Background The expanding set of genomics tools available for inbred mouse strains has
renewed interest in phenotyping larger sets of strains. The present study aims to explore …