ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Behav. Neurosci.
Sec. Motivation and Reward
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2025.1603564
This article is part of the Research TopicThe impact of environmental enrichment on addictive behaviors and compulsivity: Neurobiology and therapeutic interventionsView all articles
Sex-dependent effects of food-restriction on cocaine self-administration and cocaine-seeking in rats
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, United States
- 2School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, United States
- 3Department of Pharmacy Practice, Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, United States
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Misuse of drugs and natural rewards, such as food, share common neural pathways and comparably influence behavioral consequences. Food-restriction enhances drug-taking and drug-seeking behaviors in animals, but the effect of food-restriction on cocaine selfadministration and cocaine-seeking in both sexes has not been well characterized.Therefore, the present study investigated differences between food-restricted vs. ad libitum-feeding male and female Wistar rats on the acquisition of cocaine selfadministration and cue-induced reinstatement of cocaine-seeking. Food access sexdependently altered the acquisition of cocaine self-administration such that foodrestricted females, but not males, displayed an escalated intake behavior over time. Only food-restricted females differed significantly between active and inactive lever pressing during the reinstatement of cocaine-seeking session. Taken together, these results suggest that food-restriction sex-dependently improves learning of cocaine selfadministration that persists to alter cocaine-seeking behavior following abstinence.
Keywords: self-administration, Cocaine, Biological sex differences, cocaine-seeking, Food-restriction
Received: 31 Mar 2025; Accepted: 15 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mascarin, Mac, Kallakuri, Greenwald and Perrine. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alixandria T Mascarin, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, United States
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