Abstract
There are a number of traits that are thought to increase susceptibility to addiction, and some of these are modeled in preclinical studies. For example, “sensation-seeking” is predictive of the initial propensity to take drugs; whereas “novelty-seeking” predicts compulsive drug-seeking behavior. In addition, the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues can predict the propensity to approach drug cues, and reinstatement or relapse, even after relatively brief periods of drug exposure. The question addressed here is the extent to which these three ‘vulnerability factors’ are related; that is, predictive of one another. Some relationships have been reported in small samples, but here a large sample of 1,598 outbred male and female heterogeneous stock rats were screened for Pavlovian conditioned approach behavior (to obtain an index of incentive salience attribution; ‘sign-tracking’), and subsequently tested for sensation-seeking and novelty-seeking. Despite the large N there were no significant correlations between these traits, in either males or females. There were, however, novel relationships between multiple measures of incentive salience attribution and, based on these findings, we generated a new metric that captures “incentive value”. Furthermore, there were sex differences on measures of incentive salience attribution and sensation-seeking behavior that were not previously apparent.
Highlights
Stimuli (‘cues’) in the environment can guide adaptive behavior, bringing an individual into close proximity to valuable resources or leading one away from danger
The vertical line within the box represents the standard error of the mean
The Pavlovian conditioned approach (PCA) Index was greater for males relative to females on the first session of PCA training (p < 0.005), but on all subsequent sessions was greater in females, and this effect became more pronounced as training progressed (Session 2–5, p < 0.001)
Summary
Stimuli (‘cues’) in the environment can guide adaptive behavior, bringing an individual into close proximity to valuable resources (e.g. food, water, mates) or leading one away from danger. Self-administer cocaine[14], more likely to approach drug cues, and exhibit enhanced cue- and drug-induced reinstatement of cocaine-seeking behavior after relatively limited drug exposure and a brief period of abstinence[14,15] These data support the notion that differences in the way individuals learn about Pavlovian cue-reward associations are applicable to the study of drug abuse and addiction. The sensation-seeking trait has been shown to be a good predictor of the initial propensity to take drugs in rodents[25]; whereas novelty-seeking better predicts the propensity for compulsive drug use[26] While these two traits appear to represent distinct facets of addiction vulnerability, the relationship between them is not well understood. Further investigation is needed to elucidate the relationship between these addiction-related traits
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