Adolescent cocaine self-administration induces habit behavior in adulthood: sex differences and structural consequences.

ABSTRACT: Adolescent cocaine use increases the likelihood of drug abuse and addiction in adulthood, and etiological factors may include a cocaine-induced bias towards so-called 'reward-seeking' habits. To determine whether adolescent cocaine exposure indeed impacts decision-making strategies in adulthood, we trained adolescent mice to orally self-administer cocaine. In adulthood, males with a history of escalating self-administration developed a bias towards habit-based behaviors. In contrast, escalating females did not develop habit biases; rather, low response rates were associated with later behavioral inflexibility, independent of cocaine dose. We focused the rest of our report on understanding how individual differences in young-adolescent females predicted long-term behavioral outcomes. Low, '

SUBMITTER: DePoy LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5022090 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature