Abstract
Background: Addiction is described as a condition in which individuals are not able to control their drug use despite long-term negative consequences. Non-drug addiction or behavioral addiction such as exercise can mimic similar physiological changes in the brain and reward circuit enhancement. Psychological dependence of drug abuse, which is characterized by drug seeking behaviors will develop an ongoing cycle of drug withdrawal and relapse. Moreover, exercise has two bimodal effects; it may decrease drug seeking in a physiologic range and it may increase drug seeking when it is taken in large quantity. The current study aimed to investigate and compare the effects of voluntary and compulsory exercise on male rats’ tendency towards using morphine. Methods: We included 32 male rats that were 2 months of age. After 2-weeks of compulsory and voluntary exercise, all rats were exposed to 5-day conditioned place preference (CPP) in order to evaluate drug-seeking behavior. The CPP scale was obtained by comparing the data from “pre-conditioning” and “post-conditioning” phases and it was used to evaluate morphine-dependence. Results: The results of the current study showed that the rats that received compulsory exercise had significantly less tendency towards morphine (P < 0.05) and voluntary exercise has no significant effect. Conclusions: We conclude that compulsory exercise may reduce psychological dependence on morphine and could also be regarded as a proper complementary method for addiction prevention and preventing relapse.
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