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Drug Reinforcement in Animals

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Addiction Medicine

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Abstract

The reinforcing effects of drugs of abuse are believed to play a critical role in drug addiction. It is clear that drugs of abuse can serve as positive reinforcers maintaining self-administration in both humans and animals, and there appears to be good correspondence between humans and animals in terms of drugs that are self-administered and patterns of drug intake. This chapter provides an overview of the paradigms used for establishing drugs as reinforcers and for assessing their reinforcing efficacy in animals focusing on the drug self-administration paradigm. Animal models that allow for the examination of different phases of the addiction process including acquisition and relapse, as well as some newer “addiction” models that focus on modeling features characteristic of human drug addiction, have been developed and are discussed in the chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Wendy J. Lynch

  2. Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, 27157, USA

    Scott E. Hemby

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  1. Wendy J. Lynch
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  2. Scott E. Hemby
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Correspondence to Wendy J. Lynch .

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  1. , Depts Psychiat & Neurobehav Sciences, Me, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 22908, Virginia, USA

    Bankole A. Johnson

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Lynch, W.J., Hemby, S.E. (2010). Drug Reinforcement in Animals. In: Johnson, B. (eds) Addiction Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0338-9_6

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