Submission Type
Poster
Start Date
April 2020
Abstract
Cocaine addiction is a problem for millions of people, however we are still lacking an effective treatment. It is characterized by compulsive behaviour which marks difficulties in remaining abstinent, with a high risk of relapse. Here, I focus on the interaction between the post-drug environment and drug-seeking by testing one potential environmental treatment, an enriched environment (EE), to reduce risk of cocaine relapse. This study proposes to investigate neural circuits involved in environmental protection of context-induced relapse. Mice exposed to cocaine will be assessed for preference of a cocaine-associated context using the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Mice will then be housed in either standard or EE cages for 2 weeks of withdrawal, before being returned to the CPP chamber for a test of context-induced relapse. I hypothesize that EE will reduce cocaine relapse, an outcome associated with the changes in activation in brain regions related to reward and addiction.
Recommended Citation
Malik, Shreyya, "118— Environmental Enrichment as a Treatment for Cocaine Relapse" (2020). GREAT Day Posters. 61.
https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/great-day-symposium/great-day-2020/posters-2020/61
Included in
118— Environmental Enrichment as a Treatment for Cocaine Relapse
Cocaine addiction is a problem for millions of people, however we are still lacking an effective treatment. It is characterized by compulsive behaviour which marks difficulties in remaining abstinent, with a high risk of relapse. Here, I focus on the interaction between the post-drug environment and drug-seeking by testing one potential environmental treatment, an enriched environment (EE), to reduce risk of cocaine relapse. This study proposes to investigate neural circuits involved in environmental protection of context-induced relapse. Mice exposed to cocaine will be assessed for preference of a cocaine-associated context using the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Mice will then be housed in either standard or EE cages for 2 weeks of withdrawal, before being returned to the CPP chamber for a test of context-induced relapse. I hypothesize that EE will reduce cocaine relapse, an outcome associated with the changes in activation in brain regions related to reward and addiction.
Comments
Acknowledgements: This work was funded by the Undergraduate Summer Fellowship awarded by the Office of Sponsored Research at SUNY Geneseo and was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Alison R. Bechard.