Rapid appearance of negative emotion during oral fentanyl self-administration in male and female rats.

ABSTRACT: Opioid use disorder has become an epidemic in the United States, fuelled by the widespread availability of fentanyl, which produces rapid and intense euphoria followed by severe withdrawal and emotional distress. We developed a new preclinical model of fentanyl seeking in outbred male and female rats using volitional oral self-administration (SA) that can be readily applied in labs without intravascular access. Using a traditional two-lever operant procedure, rats learned to take oral fentanyl vigorously, escalated intake across sessions, and readily reinstated responding to conditioned cues after extinction. Oral SA also revealed individual and sex differences that are essential to studying substance use risk propensity. During a behavioural economics task, rats displayed inelastic demand

SUBMITTER: Coffey KR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10745948 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature