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A classically conditioned cocaine cue acquires greater control over motivated behavior in rats prone to attribute incentive salience to a food cue

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Abstract

Rationale

Cues associated with rewards bias attention towards them and can motivate drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior. There is, however, considerable individual variation in the extent to which cues associated with rewards acquire motivational properties. For example, only in some rats does a localizable food cue become attractive, eliciting approach towards it, and “wanted”, in the sense that it serves as an effective conditioned reinforcer.

Objectives

We asked whether the propensity of animals to attribute incentive salience to a food cue predicts the extent to which a classically conditioned cocaine cue acquires incentive motivational properties.

Methods

First, a Pavlovian conditioned approach procedure was used to identify rats prone to attribute incentive salience to a food cue. We then measured the extent to which a classically conditioned cocaine cue acquired two properties of an incentive stimulus: (1) the ability to elicit approach towards it, and (2) the ability to reinstate drug-seeking behavior, using an extinction-reinstatement procedure (i.e., to act as a conditioned reinforcer).

Results

We found that a classically conditioned cocaine cue became more attractive, in that it elicited greater approach toward it, and more desired, in that it supported more drug-seeking behavior under extinction conditions, in individuals prone to attribute incentive salience to a food cue.

Conclusions

We conclude that rats vary in their propensity to attribute incentive salience to both food and cocaine cues, and it is possible to predict, prior to any drug experience, in which rats a cocaine cue will acquire the strongest motivational control over behavior.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Anusari Dewasurendra for assistance with behavioral testing, and Drs. Shelly Flagel, Vedran Lovic, and Paul Meyer for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

Funding acknowledgments

This research was supported by National Institute on Drug Abuse grants to L.M.Y (F31 DA030799) and T.E.R. (R37 DA004294 and P01 DA031656). The authors report no financial conflict of interest. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Drug Abuse or the National Institutes of Health. All research was conducted in concordance with current local and national US laws.

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Correspondence to Terry E. Robinson.

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Yager, L.M., Robinson, T.E. A classically conditioned cocaine cue acquires greater control over motivated behavior in rats prone to attribute incentive salience to a food cue. Psychopharmacology 226, 217–228 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-012-2890-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-012-2890-y

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