Stimulant Self-Administration

Stimulants such as cocaine and the amphetamines are widely abused due to their rewarding effects. Much of what we know about drug abuse and drug reward comes from research involving stimulants, and much of this research involves using drug self-administration as an animal model of drug abuse. In this chapter, the example of stimulant self-administration is used to illustrate: (1) the basic methodology of drug self-administration procedures and (2) the behavioral principles that apply to addiction and animal models of addiction. Many variations of the self-administration procedure have been developed to model specific aspects of drug abuse, to assess the rewarding effects of drugs, and to assess the effects of treatments. The chapter describes how these variations are devised by stipulating the behavioral requirements for receiving the drug (i.e., the schedule of reinforcement) and incorporating drug-related environmental cues analogous to those that occur in the human drug-abuse environment.