Altered motivation and learning following opiate withdrawal: Evidence for prolonged dysregulation of rewardprocessing

Abstract

Opiate abuse has been associated with cognitive deficits in human addicts. To determine if prior opiate exposure alters the ability to learn, we trained animals in an instrumentallearning task for a food reward. During a 2-week period after withdrawal, morphine-abstinent ratswere significantly slower at learning an escalating fixed-ratio response for food reward compared to placebo-treated animals. When thesesame animals were trained in a conditioned suppression paradigm (two tone-shock pairings given in the operant box), the morphine-withdrawn animals showed greater retention by taking significantly longer to resume responding for food reward when the tone waspresented. In athird experiment, morphine-abstinent rats withdrawn 2 or 5 weeks were tested fortheir ability to associate a highly palatable food reward with a specific environment using a place-conditioning paradigm. At 2 weeks postwithdrawal, morphine-abstinent rats did notshow any significant place preference for a food they readily consumed, while placebo-treated rats readily learned to preferthe food-pairedenvironment. At 5 weeks postwithdrawal, rats developed significantly less preference for food-associated cues, but more preference formorphine-associated cues, compared to placebo-treated animals. These data suggest that prior morphine exposure may have prolongedeffects on the motivation for natural rewards, which in turn may compromise the ability of former addicts to overcome their addictions. © 2003 American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.