Events

Abstract: Relapse to drug use during abstinence is a defining feature of addiction. During the last several decades, this clinical scenario has been studied at the preclinical level using classical relapse/reinstatement models in which drug seeking is assessed after experimenter-imposed homecage forced abstinence or extinction of the drug-reinforced responding in the self-administration chambers. To date, however, results from studies using the traditional rat relapse/reinstatement models have yet to result in FDA-approved medications for relapse prevention. The reasons for this state-of-affairs are complex and multi-faceted, but one potential reason is that in humans, abstinence is often voluntary and occurs either because the negative consequences of drug use outweigh the drug’s rewarding effects or the availability of nondrug alternative rewards that are chosen over the drug. Based on these considerations, we have developed rat models of relapse after voluntary abstinence, achieved either by introducing adverse consequences to drug taking (punishment) or seeking (electric barrier), or by providing mutually exclusive choices between the self-administered drug versus non-drug rewards (palatable food or social interaction). In the lecture, I will provide an overview of these new relapse models and present recent neurobiological findings from studies using these models.  

Biography: Yavin Shaham received his BS and MA from the Hebrew U, Jerusalem, and his PhD from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD. His postdoctoral training was at Concordia U, Montreal, in the laboratory of Dr. Jane Stewart. Prior to joining the NIDA Intramural Research Program, he was an investigator at the Addiction Research Center, Toronto. He is currently a tenured Branch Chief and a Senior Investigator. His major awards include Society of Neuroscience Jacob Waletzky award for innovative research in drug and alcohol addiction (2006), NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Grant Award (2016), NIDA-IRP Investigator Mentoring Award (2016), European Behavioral Pharmacology Society (EBPS) Distinguished Achievement Award (2017), the NIH Director’s Award of Merit (2020), and the NIH Ruth Kirschstein Mentoring Award (2022). Most recently, he was invited to present his research at a 2023 Nobel symposium entitled the ‘Social Brain. ‘He has published over 240 empirical papers, reviews, and commentaries, and his papers were cited over 37,500 times (h-factor: 104; Google Scholar). In 2018, Shaham was named by The Web of Science as a “Highly Cited Researcher” (top 1%). He has served as a Reviewing and Senior Editor of The Journal of Neuroscience from 2008 to 2018 and currently severs as a Reviewing Editor of Neuropsychopharmacology and as an Advisory Board Member of eNeuro. He is also an editorial board member of Biological Psychiatry, Psychopharmacology, Behavioural Pharmacology, and Addiction Biology. Shaham currently serves as the president of EBPS. His group investigates mechanisms of relapse to opioid and psychostimulant seeking, as assessed in rat models developed in his lab (https://irp.drugabuse.gov/organization/bnrb/nrs/).  

Welcome to this exciting seminar!  

Mikko Airavaara 

Selected publications: 

• Caprioli et al. (2017) Role of dorsomedial striatum neuronal ensembles in incubation of methamphetamine craving after voluntary abstinence. The Journal of Neuroscience 37:1014-1027  
• Venniro et al. (2017) The anterior insular cortex→central amygdala glutamatergic pathway is critical to relapse after contingency management. Neuron 96:414–427  
• Venniro et al. (2018) Volitional social interaction prevents drug addiction in rat models. Nature Neuroscience 21:1520-1529  
• Venniro et al. (2019) Operant social reward decreases incubation of heroin craving in male and female rats. Biological Psychiatry 86:848-856  
• Fredriksson et al. (2020) Effect of the dopamine stabilizer (-)-OSU6162 on potentiated incubation of opioid craving after electric barrier-induced voluntary abstinence. Neuropsychopharmacology 45:770-779  
• Reiner et al. (2020) Role of projections from piriform cortex to orbitofrontal cortex in relapse to fentanyl seeking after palatable food choice-induced voluntary abstinence. The Journal of Neuroscience 40:2485-249  
• Venniro et al. (2020) Abstinence-dependent dissociable central amygdala microcircuits control incubation of craving. PNAS 117:8126-8134  
• Venniro et al. (2020) Improving translation of animal models of addiction and relapse by reverse translation. Nature Review Neuroscience 39:3996-4008  
• Venniro et al. (2021) The protective effect of operant social reward on cocaine self-administration, choice, and relapse is dependent on delay and effort for the social reward. Neuropsychopharmacology 46:2350-2357  
• Fredriksson et al. (2021) Animal models of drug relapse and craving after voluntary abstinence: a review. Pharmacological Review 73:1050-1083  
• Fredriksson et al. (2021) Orbitofrontal cortex and dorsal striatum functional connectivity predicts incubation of opioid craving after voluntary abstinence. PNAS 118(43): e2106624118  
• Ramsey et al. (2022) Waving through the window: a model of volitional social interaction in female mice. Biological Psychiatry 91:988-997  
• Fredriksson et al. (2023) Role of ventral subiculum neuronal ensembles in incubation of oxycodone craving after electric barrier-induced voluntary abstinence. Science Advances 9(2):eadd8687