Department of Anatomy & Neurosciences, Amsterdam UMC location Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Compulsivity Impulsivity and Attention, Amsterdam Neuroscience, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Neuropsychopharmacology. 2023 Mar;48(4):585-593. doi: 10.1038/s41386-022-01447-6. Epub 2022 Sep 15.
The interaction between social factors and alcohol addiction is complex, with potential for both positive and negative contributions to drug use and abstinence. Positive social connections are an important component in successful abstinence, and yet the social context of alcohol use can also lead to relapse. Recently it was shown that rats overwhelmingly choose social reward over methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin in a discrete choice procedure, and that prolonged choice for social reward attenuates incubation of drug craving. The extent to which this effect generalises to rats trained to self-administer alcohol is not known. In this study we aimed to test the effect of social reward on choice for alcohol in male and female rats. We first validated social reward self-administration in both male and female Long-Evans rats, and found that 60 s access to a social partner of the same sex can serve as an operant reinforcer. Next we trained rats to self-administer both social reward and alcohol (20% ethanol in water), and then used discrete choice trial based tests to determine whether there is a choice preference for alcohol or social reward. Our main finding is that both male and female rats showed persistent choice for alcohol over social reward, with only minor differences between the sexes. We also show that choice for alcohol could be reduced via increased response requirement for alcohol, pre-choice alcohol exposure, and also decreasing the alcohol percentage. This study shows that preference for social rewards over drugs may not generalise to rats self-administering alcohol, and we describe several conditions where choice for social reward can be developed. This study highlights the important contribution of social factors to alcohol abuse, and future studies can investigate the neurobiology underlying a shift in preference from alcohol to social rewards.
社会因素与酒精成瘾之间的相互作用是复杂的，可能对药物使用和戒断既有积极影响，也有消极影响。积极的社会关系是成功戒断的重要组成部分，但饮酒的社会环境也可能导致复发。最近的研究表明，在离散选择程序中，大鼠压倒性地选择社交奖励而不是甲基苯丙胺、可卡因和海洛因，并且对社交奖励的长期选择会减轻对药物渴望的潜伏期。这种效果在接受自我给药酒精训练的大鼠中是否普遍存在尚不清楚。在这项研究中，我们旨在测试社交奖励对雄性和雌性大鼠选择酒精的影响。我们首先验证了社交奖励在雄性和雌性长耳大仓鼠中的自我给药，发现 60 秒与同性社交伴侣接触可以作为操作性强化物。接下来，我们训练大鼠自我给予社交奖励和酒精（20%乙醇水溶液），然后使用离散选择试验来确定大鼠是否更倾向于选择酒精或社交奖励。我们的主要发现是，雄性和雌性大鼠都表现出对酒精的持续选择，而性别之间只有微小差异。我们还表明，通过增加酒精的反应要求、预选择酒精暴露以及降低酒精百分比，可以减少对酒精的选择。这项研究表明，对社交奖励的偏好可能不会普遍适用于自我给予酒精的大鼠，并且我们描述了几种可以发展对社交奖励的选择的条件。这项研究强调了社会因素对酒精滥用的重要贡献，未来的研究可以研究从酒精到社交奖励的偏好转变的神经生物学基础。
