Conditioned place preference

Conditioned place preference (CPP) is a form of Pavlovian conditioning used to measure the motivational effects of objects or experiences.[1] This motivation comes from the pleasurable aspect of the experience, so that the brain can be reminded of the context that surrounded the "encounter".[2] By measuring the amount of time an animal spends in an area that has been associated with a stimulus, researchers can infer the animal's liking for the stimulus.[3] This paradigm can also be used to measure conditioned place aversion with an identical procedure involving aversive stimuli instead. Both procedures usually involve mice or rats as subjects.[4][5] This procedure can be used to measure extinction and reinstatement of the conditioned stimulus. Certain drugs are used in this paradigm to measure their reinforcing properties. Two different methods are used to choose the compartments to be conditioned, and these are biased vs. unbiased. The biased method allows the animal to explore the apparatus, and the compartment they least prefer is the one that the drug is administered in and the one they most prefer is the one where the vehicle (without the drug) is injected.[6] This method allows the animal to choose the compartment they get the drug and vehicle. In comparison, the unbiased method does not allow the animal to choose what compartment they get the drug and vehicle in. Instead, the researcher chooses the compartments.[6]

Humans have also been shown to develop conditioned place preferences; for example, people taking therapeutic doses of amphetamine develop a CPP for where they consumed the drug.[7][8]

Conditioned place preference apparatus
Different floor textures in conditioned place preference
  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Tzschentke2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Spencer, Alexis C.; Surnar, Bapurao; Kolishetti, Nagesh; Toborek, Michal; Dhar, Shanta (2022-12-01). "Restoring the neuroprotective capacity of glial cells under opioid addiction". Addiction Neuroscience. 4: 100027. doi:10.1016/j.addicn.2022.100027. ISSN 2772-3925. S2CID 250193516.
  3. ^ Childs, Emma; Wit, Harriet de (2009). "Amphetamine-Induced Place Preference in Humans". Biological Psychiatry. 65 (10): 900–904. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.11.016. PMC 2693956. PMID 19111278.
  4. ^ Campbell J., Wood R., Spear L. (2000) Cocaine and morphine-induced place conditioning in adolescent and adult rats. Physiol Behav 68:487–493
  5. ^ Adriani W., Laviola G. (2002) Spontaneous novelty seeking and amphetamine-induced conditioning and sensitization in adult mice: evidence of dissociation as a function of age at weaning. Neuropsychopharmacology 27:225–236.
  6. ^ a b Prus, AJ., James, JR., Rosecrans, AJ.(2009). Methods of Behavioral Analysis in Neuroscience. Augusta, CRC press.
  7. ^ Childs E, de Wit H (2009). "Amphetamine-induced place preference in humans". Biol. Psychiatry. 65 (10): 900–4. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.11.016. PMC 2693956. PMID 19111278. This study demonstrates that humans, like nonhumans, prefer a place associated with amphetamine administration. These findings support the idea that subjective responses to a drug contribute to its ability to establish place conditioning.
  8. ^ Castells, Xavier; Blanco-Silvente, Lídia; Cunill, Ruth (2018). "Amphetamines for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults". The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2018 (8): CD007813. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD007813.pub3. ISSN 1469-493X. PMC 6513464. PMID 30091808.