Lucy Hoying
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Emily Jutkiewicz
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Pharmacology / Medicine
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 3 – 1:40pm – 2:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Lucy Hoying, Lauren Rysztak, Emily Jutkiewicz
Presenter: 13
Abstract
Drug abuse is a massive public health crisis in the United States. One barrier for treatment is that environmental cues can trigger drug cravings in humans, leading to relapse. Using animal models to test the conditioned reinforcing properties of cocaine-paired cues, we hypothesized that by administering specific psychoactive drugs that act on the opioidergic system, there would be a change in responding to earn presentations of cocaine-paired cues. We used a behavioral procedure called New Response Acquisition as a test of cocaine-conditioned reinforcement. The first phase is Pavlovian conditioning, in which rats receive five cocaine infusions, either paired with light/tone stimuli (Paired) or delivered separately (Unpaired) once per day for 10 days. In the next phase, Acquisition, cocaine is removed from the sessions and two nose pokes (active and inactive) are inserted into the operant chambers. Responding on the active nose poke results in presentation of the light/tone stimulus. Pre-treatments of different opioids were administered (3.2 mg/kg morphine morphine sc; 3.2 mg/kg SNC-80 (d-opioid receptor agonist) sc; or 3.2 mg/kg naltrindole sc (d-opioid receptor antagonist) + 3.2 mg/kg SNC-80 sc) prior to the fourth ACQ session. Overall, Paired animals responded significantly more on the active nose-poke than Unpaired animals. Morphine pretreatment decreased responding in the Paired group, while the d-opioid receptor agonist drug SNC-80 significantly increased active nose-poke responses in both Paired and Unpaired rats, to a greater extent in the Paired group. A pretreatment of naltrindole to SNC-80 blocked SNC-80-induced increases in active nose pokes in Paired rats. These data suggest that delta-opioid receptor activation may be involved in the behavior to earn presentations of cocaine paired cues. The knowledge we uncover will contextualize and inform later research that may contribute to drug or behavioral treatment programs to reduce environmentally-triggered relapse in people struggling with drug abuse.
Biomedical Sciences, Interdisciplinary, Natural/Life Sciences
