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Intermittent access to cocaine self‐administration impairs performance in a visual attention task in rats: effects of psychostimulants.
Author(s) -
Martin Thomas J.,
Kim Susy A.,
Eure Mary M.,
Blough Bruce E.,
Nader Michael A.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2020.34.s1.05243
Subject(s) - abstinence , psychology , task (project management) , self administration , audiology , medicine , cognition , amphetamine , developmental psychology , dopamine , neuroscience , anesthesia , psychiatry , management , economics
Cocaine abuse leads to a number of deficits in cognition, including attention. Several rodent models for attention have been developed, including the 5 choice serial reaction time task. We recently developed a variant of this task in rats (5CTV) that systematically adjusts task difficulty within sessions to match subject performance. Task difficulty is altered by adjusting the visual cue duration dynamically such that the cue duration decreases in trials following correct responses and increases in trials following incorrect responses or omissions. Animals were trained in this task and then permitted to self‐administer infusions of 1.5 mg/kg of cocaine (COCSA) under different access conditions. 5CTV sessions were conducted each weekday 2 hr prior to COCSA sessions. COCSA for 6 hr/d, but not 3 hr/d, produced a progressive impairment in 5CTV performance over 3 weeks, which returned to normal over 2 weeks of forced abstinence. Access to COCSA for 6 hr/d every other day (3 d/wk) however produced a sustained increase in MCD in two‐thirds of the subjects, while one‐third were resistant to this effect. Administration of cocaine, L‐amphetamine, or phenmetrazine prior to 5CTV sessions failed to improve performance in disrupted animals, while caffeine pretreatment resulted in significant improvement. COCSA produces significant disruption in the 5CTV visual attention task in rats, and adenosine antagonists but not catecholaminergic psychostimulants may improve visual attention with ongoing periodic cocaine use. Support or Funding Information Supported by NIDA P50‐DA006634