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Journal Article

Citation

Fultz EK, Szumlinski KK. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2017; 183: 150-154.

Affiliation

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106-9660 USA; Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and the Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106-9660 USA. Electronic address: karen.szumlinski@psych.ucsb.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.10.034

PMID

29253796

Abstract

An alcohol use disorder is a major predisposing factor for methamphetamine (MA) abuse. Further, MA-alcohol co-abuse is a risk factor for treatment discontinuation and non-compliance in MA-dependent individuals. No effective treatment exists for MA addiction, let alone treatments directed at those suffering from MA-alcohol addiction co-morbidity. Thus, it is imperative that we develop high-throughput animal models to study the biobehavioral interactions between MA and alcohol of relevance to the etiology and treatment of co-abuse. To this end, we reported that a history of binge alcohol-drinking [5,10, 20 and 40% (v/v); 2 h/day for 10-14 days] reduces MA reinforcement and intake, but it augments MA-preference and intake when drug availability is behaviorally non-contingent. To reconcile this apparent discrepancy in findings, we employed a comparable 2-week binge-drinking paradigm as that employed in our previous studies followed by place-conditioning procedures (4 pairings of 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2 or 4 mg/kg MA, i.p.). This was meant to determine how a prior binge-drinking history impacts the affective valence of MA and sensitivity to MA-induced psychomotor-activation/sensitization. Prior binge-drinking history blunted spontaneous locomotor activity and shifted the MA dose-place-preference function upwards of water drinking controls. The potentiation of MA-conditioned reward by prior binge-drinking history was independent of any alcohol effects upon the locomotor-activating or -sensitizing effects of MA. Based on these results we propose that the reduced MA reinforcement reported previously by our group likely reflects a compensatory response to an increased sensitivity to MA's positive subjective effects rather than increased sensitivity to the drug's psychomotor-activating effects.

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


Language: en

Keywords

Alcohol use disorder; Binge-drinking; Methamphetamine; Place-conditioning; Psychomotor activity; Reward; Sensitization

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