Chunk #67 — 5. Procedures for evaluating pharmacological treatments targeting alcohol abuse and dependence — 5.8. Models of ethanol-craving and -seeking in the operant chamber
One advantage of using operant procedures to measure ethanol self-administration behavior is that the operant environment provides explicit cues signaling ethanol availability. These cues are distinct from those found in the home-cage environment and can be incorporated into experimental procedures to examine ethanol craving behavior. After a substantial number of pairings of the operant cues with ethanol reinforcement/reward, the cues can elicit lever-pressing behavior even in the absence of ethanol reward (i.e., cue-induced responding). Therefore, it is not surprising that cue-induced reinstatement of responding has been proposed as one measure of craving behavior (Koob, 2000). An example of this is the finding that baclofen reduces cue-induced reinstatement of responding for ethanol in sP rats (Maccioni et al., 2008a), and there is evidence that baclofen reduces craving for alcohol in clicnial populations (c.f., Agabio et al., 2012). Two other procedures that use environmental cues associated with operant ethanol self-administration to assess craving/seeking behavior include (a) extinction and (b) Pavlovian Spontaneous Recovery (PSR) of responding paradigms. In both cases, lever-pressing behavior in the absence of ethanol reinforcement is recorded. Despite the absence
