Systemic kappa opioid receptor antagonism accelerates reinforcement learning via augmentation of novelty processing in male mice.

ABSTRACT: Selective inhibition of kappa opioid receptors (KORs) is highly anticipated as a pharmacotherapeutic intervention for substance use disorders and depression. The accepted explanation for KOR antagonist-induced amelioration of aberrant behaviors posits that KORs globally function as a negative valence system; antagonism thereby blunts the behavioral influence of negative internal states such as anhedonia and negative affect. While effects of systemic KOR manipulations have been widely reproduced, explicit evaluation of negative valence as an explanatory construct is lacking. Here, we tested a series of falsifiable hypotheses generated a priori based on the negative valence model by pairing reinforcement learning tasks with systemic pharmacological KOR blockade in male C57BL/6J mice. The neg

SUBMITTER: Farahbakhsh ZZ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10156709 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature