Gene-environment interactions in vulnerability to cocaine intravenous self-administration: a brief social experience affects intake in DBA/2J but not in C57BL/6J mice.
Psychopharmacology. 2007-03-31; 193(2): 179-186
DOI: 10.1007/s00213-007-0777-0
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1. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2007 Aug;193(2):179-86. Epub 2007 Mar 31.
Gene-environment interactions in vulnerability to cocaine intravenous
self-administration: a brief social experience affects intake in DBA/2J but not
in C57BL/6J mice.
van der Veen R(1), Piazza PV, Deroche-Gamonet V.
Author information:
(1)Centre de recherche INSERM U862 Physiopathologie de la plasticité neuronale,
Institut François Magendie, Université de Bordeaux 2, 146 rue Léo Saignat, 33077
Bordeaux Cedex, France.
RATIONALE: Individual differences in cocaine-taking behavior and liability to
develop abuse are clearly observed, but underlying mechanisms are still poorly
understood. A role for gene-environment interactions has been proposed but
remains hypothetical.
OBJECTIVES: We investigated whether gene-environment interactions influence
intravenous cocaine self-administration (SA) in mice. We tested the effect of a
past short group housing experience on cocaine SA in two inbred strains of mice,
the C57BL/6J (C57) and DBA/2J (DBA).
METHODS: Adult C57 and DBA mice were individually housed upon arrival in the
laboratory. After 3 weeks, half of the animals of each strain were group housed
for 19 days. One week after the end of group housing, cocaine SA or measurement
of brain cocaine levels took place.
RESULTS: Individually and ex-group-housed C57 mice did not differ for cocaine SA.
On the contrary, the ex-group-housed DBA mice showed an upward shift in the
dose-response curve as compared to individually housed DBA. Differences in brain
cocaine levels could not account for the observed behavioral differences.
CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate that vulnerability to cocaine reinforcing
effects can be affected by gene-environment interactions. We propose a mouse
model for the characterization of gene-environment interactions in the
vulnerability to cocaine-taking behavior.
DOI: 10.1007/s00213-007-0777-0
PMID: 17396246 [Indexed for MEDLINE]