Until recently, most modern neuroscience research on addiction using animal models did
not incorporate manipulations of social factors. Social factors play a critical role in human …

Addiction to drug and alcohol is regarded as a major health problem worldwide for which
available treatments show limited effectiveness. The biggest challenge remains to enhance …

Drug addiction is a multifactorial disorder resulting from the complex interaction between
biological, environmental and drug-induced effects. Generally, stress is a well-known risk …

Rationale One problem facing animal models of intravenous drug self-administration,
particularly those examining social manipulations, is that subjects must be removed from the …

The social environment plays a critical role in determining the likelihood that an individual
will use drugs or will develop a drug use disorder. Recent evidence obtained from …

Individuals suffering from substance use disorders often show severely impaired social
interaction, preferring drugs of abuse to the contact with others. Their impaired social …

Social cognition is an endophenotype that is impaired in schizophrenia and several other
(comorbid) psychiatric disorders. One of the modulators of social cognition is dopamine, but …

Positive social interaction could play an essential role in switching the preference of the
substance dependent individual away from drug related activities. We have previously …

Drug use is highly concordant among members of adolescent and young adult peer groups.
One potential explanation for this observation is that drugs may increase the reinforcing …

Calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) is known to be involved in the
sensitized locomotor responses and drug-seeking behavior to psychostimulants. However …