Drug Abuse Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Drug Abuse, including details on psychology, rehabilitation, consequences, treatment.

Neuropsychopharmacology of drug seeking: Insights from studies with second-order schedules of drug reinforcement.

Di Ciano P, Everitt BJ

Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, CB2 3EB, UK. pd241@cam.ac.uk

Second-order schedules of reinforcement model complex chains of responding for rewards such as food or drugs. Derived from studies of conditioned reinforcement, an important feature of these schedules is that responding is maintained by the response-dependent presentation of conditioned stimuli. They are thus well-suited to the study of the influences over drug seeking exerted by drug-associated stimuli. In the present review, we summarise studies investigating the neurobiology and neuropsychopharmacology of responding for cocaine under a second-order schedule of reinforcement. We conclude that limbic-striatal circuitries underlie drug seeking measured in this way. Emphasis is placed on potential interactions between structures within these subsystems by reviewing neuropsychopharmacological studies in which antagonists selective for either glutamate or dopamine receptors have been infused directly into limbic, cortical and striatal areas.

Published 5 December 2005 in Eur J Pharmacol, 526(1): 186-98.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Drug Abuse Research Today. All Rights Reserved.