Animal Models of Drug Addiction

Our understanding of addiction and how it is treated has advanced remarkably over the past decades, and much of the progress is related directly to animal research. This is true for both the behavioural aspects of drug use as well as the biological underpinnings of the disorder. In Animal Models of Drug Addiction, experts in the field provide an up-to-date review of complex behavioural paradigms that model different stages of this disorder and explain how each test is used to effectively replicate the progression of drug addiction. This detailed and practical book begins with the most common laboratory measures of addiction in animals, including intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS), drug self-administration, place conditioning, and sensitization. Later chapters describe how these paradigms are used to model the progression of drug addiction, providing insight into the clinical symptomatology of addiction from acquisition of drug use through compulsive drug taking to withdrawal and relapse. Written for the popular Neuromethods series, the contributions offer both methodological detail and a theoretical perspective, appealing to readers familiar with preclinical research on drug addiction as well as those who are newcomers to the field.

Cutting-edge and authoritative, Animal Models of Drug Addiction will serve as a basis for future vital research that links the bench to the bedside in the crucial treatment of drug addiction.