Rat Park 1981 PB&B PDF
Rat Park 1981 PB&B PDF
Rat Park 1981 PB&B PDF
Self-administration
Environment
Isolation
Subjects
Sixteen male and sixteen female albino rats of Wistar origin (University of British Columbia Breeding Stock) were
obtained at weaning (21_+2 days of age). Eight males and
eight females were placed in individual housing; eight males
and eight females were housed in a colony.
572
ALEXANDER E l AL.
TABLE 1
HOUSING CONDITIONSAND SEQUENCE OF DRUG-SUCROSE
SOLUTIONS PRESENTED IN EXPERIMENTAl.PHASES
Housing Conditions
Designation
Early
(22-65 Days)
II
CI
IC
CC
Isolated
Colony
Isolated
Colony
Contemporaneous
(65 Days Onwards)
Isolated
Isolated
Colony
Colony
N
4M,4F
4M,4F
4M,4F
4M,4F
Phases
Phase
Name
Morphine or Quinine/Sucrose
Solution
Days
Usable
Days
PRE
Q
3
5
5
5
5
5
3
3
2
4
2
5
5
2
0.5
0.3
0.15
POST
tioned over a shallow well, with a photoelectric beam running across each well. Drinking from a well required a rat to
break a light beam with its head. Withdrawing its head
re-instated the beam, automatically releasing another drop of
fluid into the well. The number of drops released from each
dispenser was displayed on digital counters. This device is
described in greater detail elsewhere [5].
When a rat entered the tunnel, a photoelectrically activated video camera recorded the dye mark on its back and
the number of drops released by the previous rat as displayed on the digital counters. Any overflow from a well was
drawn off by a vacuum pump into separate containers for
each fluid. This loss (usually less than 10% of total intake)
was subtracted proportionately to each rat's intake for the
day.
Other environmental variables were controlled by situating both housing environments in the same large room, with
a 12 hr light-dark cycle. Food was available ad lib throughout.
At 60 days of age all rats were weighed and dye marked
for identification. At 65 days of age, half the colony rats were
transferred to individual cages and half the isolated rats were
placed in the colony, producing four housing conditions each
containing four rats of each sex (see Table I). The rats were
then left undisturbed for two weeks. During this period colony rats drank their water from the dispensing device, a skill
which each rat learned readily.
Intake testing began at 80 days of age. In each phase rats
were given 24 hr access to a drug-sucrose solution and a tap
water alternative. The concentrations of the drug-sucrose
solutions, sequence and length of the seven phases, and
phase abbreviations appear in Table 1. Phase PRE provided
access to tap water and to a 10% sucrose solution to determine if housing conditions had affected preference for sweet
solutions. Next, Phase Q entailed access to water and to a
H O U S I N G AND M O R P H I N E I N G E S T I O N
C t ~,:o
MALES
a.
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100
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a
w
ico
u.i
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tals. To illustrate the nature of the variability, Table 2 presents day-by-day individual data for a representative phase
(Phase 0.3, males, mg/kg) and an abbreviated ANOVA
summary table.
ExC
o
50
573
b.
C**t.
75
C'*
C .... ExC'"
t--" w"
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og
m
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r0r
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I
cr
3
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0.0
PRE
.5
.3
.15
POST
PHASE
FIG. 1. Ingestion of drug-sucrose solutions by male rats m e a s u r e d as
g drug-sucrose solution, m g MHC1 or quinine sulfate/kg body
weight, and proportion of drug-sucrose solution to total fluid intake.
C signifies that the F for the effect o f c o n t e m p o r a n e o u s e n v i r o n m e n t
was significant. E indicates that early e n v i r o n m e n t was significant.
and E C indicates a significant interaction. * ** *** and ****
signify significance at the 0.05, 0.01 0.001 and 0.0001 levels, respectively.
Gender Differences
Analyses of variance performed on data for both sexes
revealed that neither the ingestion of morphine nor of control
solutions was affected by gender. Of 76 F tests for the gender
main effect plus all its interactions with early and contemporaneous environment in the 7 phases, only 1 was significant at the 0.05 level.
DISCUSSION
574
ALEXANDER ET A L .
TABLE 2
S A M P L E DATA A N D A N O V A SUMMARY. D A T A FROM P H A S E 0.3, MAI.ES,
mg MHC1 C O N S U M E D / k g BODY W E I G H T
Day
Condition
Mean
IC
8.862
2.679
0.0
3.238
15.821
2.673
0.728
22.107
29.077
7.401
1.436
22.553
13.368
25.189
1.239
35.376
27.601
33.615
3.650
36.964
18.946
14.311
1.411
24.048
CC
0.000
I. 070
2.857
0.0
0.000
4.026
1.695
2.742
0.793
2.825
0.767
3.575
6.268
4.644
2.066
4. 160
0.0~)
5.276
I. 133
5.(~)6
1.412
3.568
1.704
3. 115
II
66.414
77.167
56.932
87.166
59.085
3.565
28.466
12.612
68.021
82.269
5.790
2.233
79.144
34.320
17.550
14.714
61.335
20.270
19.782
25.815
66.800
43.518
25.704
28.508
CI
93.2,:14
68.999
88.335
I 11.561
64.880
84.104
3.198
131.539
21.740
24.489
5.356
78.699
28. 109
41.918
26.860
37. 156
78.723
47.102
70.668
62.549
57.335
53.322
38.883
84.301
MHCI than isolated rats, whatever their early housing condition, even though they had been exposed to the early environment for 44 days and to the contemporaneous environment for only 15 days prior to the start of the experiment.
Early isolation appeared to increase morphine consumption
in Phase 0.15 for colony-dwelling rats, but the statistical
support for this observation was weaker.
The apparently large effect of living in a colony on morphine consumption must be qualified by recognition of two
facts. First, the loss of 3 day's data on Phase 0.5 reduces the
confidence with which that phase's results can be accepted.
This problem, however, does not apply to Phases 0.3 in
which the housing effect was also large, since no data were
lost. Second, there was a trend toward increasing consumption of MHCI in the IC rats and, to a lesser extent, the CC
rats across the 5 days of Phases 0.3 and 0.15, suggesting that
a longer period of exposure might reduce the magnitude of
the housing effect. In spite of these qualifications, however,
the present results and those of two previous experiments
[ 1,10] suggest that the housing effect is both large and robust.
Two broad conclusions are suggested. First, the consumption of opiates by animals in self-administration experiments may be strongly facilitated by the typically isolated
housing conditions during intake testing. Generalizations
from such experiments should be qualified by this
possibility. Second, some attributes which differ between
df
MS
1
1
I
12
34002
130
4368
1011
33.64
(I.13
4.32
<0.0001
N.S.
0.06
FEMALES
II
CI
IC
CC
a.
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100
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
t
PRE
.5
.3
.15
POST
PHASE
FIG. 2. Consumption of drug-sucrose solutions by female rats. Notation is the same as for Fig. 1.
We are grateful for help and advice from Wayne Tressel, Kathy
Redmond, Joan Foster, Benjamin Staat, Ray Koopman, and Stanton
Peele. This research was supported by grants from the Health Promotion Directorate, Health and Welfare, Canada, the British
Columbia Ministry of Labour, and from the Steel Foundation,
Simon Fraser University.
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576
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A L E X A N D E R El' AL.