Rat Park
Rat Park was a series of studies into
At the time of the studies, research exploring the self-administration of morphine in animals often used small, solitary metal cages. Alexander hypothesized that these conditions may be responsible for exacerbating self-administration.[1] To test this hypothesis, Alexander and his colleagues built Rat Park, a large housing colony 200 times the floor area of a standard laboratory cage. There were 16–20 rats of both sexes in residence, food, balls and wheels for play, and enough space for mating.[2] The results of the experiment appeared to support his hypothesis that improved housing-conditions reduce the consumption of morphine water.[1] This research highlighted an important issue in the design of morphine-self administration studies of the time, namely the use of austere housing-conditions, which confound the results.[3]
Rat Park experiments
In Rat Park, the rats could drink a fluid from one of two drop dispensers, which automatically recorded how much each rat drank. One dispenser contained a sweetened morphine solution and the other plain tap water. Morphine solution was sweetened to reduce averse reaction to the taste of morphine; as a control, prior to morphine introduction, rats were offered a sweetened quinine solution instead.
Alexander designed a number of experiments to test the rats' willingness to consume the morphine. The Seduction Experiment involved four groups of 8 rats.[4] Group CC was isolated in laboratory cages when they were weaned at 22 days of age, and lived there until the experiment ended at 80 days of age; Group PP was housed in Rat Park for the same period; Group CP was moved from laboratory cages to Rat Park at 65 days of age; and Group PC was moved out of Rat Park and into cages at 65 days of age.
The caged rats (Groups CC and PC) took to the morphine instantly, even with relatively little sweetener, with the caged males drinking 19 times more morphine than the Rat Park males in one of the experimental conditions. The rats in Rat Park resisted the morphine water. They would try it occasionally—with the females trying it more often than the males—but they showed a statistically significant preference for the plain water. He writes that the most interesting group was Group CP, the rats who were brought up in cages but moved to Rat Park before the experiment began. These animals rejected the morphine solution when it was stronger, but as it became sweeter and more dilute, they began to drink almost as much as the rats that had lived in cages throughout the experiment. They wanted the sweet water, he concluded, so long as it did not disrupt their normal social behavior.[5] Even more significant, he writes, was that when he added naloxone, a drug which negates the effects of opioids, to the morphine-laced water, the Rat Park rats began to drink it.
In another experiment, he forced rats in ordinary lab cages to consume the morphine-laced solution for 57 days without other liquid available to drink. When they moved into Rat Park, they were allowed to choose between the morphine solution and plain water. They drank the plain water. He writes that they did show some signs of dependence. There were "some minor withdrawal signs, twitching, what have you, but there were none of the mythic seizures and sweats you so often hear about ..."[2]
The authors concluded that isolated cages, as well as female sex, caused an increased consumption of morphine. The authors advised that it is important to consider the conditions of testing, as well as the sex of the animals, when exploring self-administration of morphine.[1]
Further experiments
Studies that followed up on the contribution of environmental enrichment to addiction produced mixed results. A replication study found that both caged and "park" rats showed a decreased preference for morphine compared to Alexander's original study; the author suggested a genetic reason for the difference Alexander initially observed.[6] Another study found that while social isolation can influence levels of heroin self-administration, isolation is not a necessary condition for heroin or cocaine injections to be reinforcing.[7]
Other studies have reinforced the effect of
Broadly speaking, there is mounting evidence that the impoverished small cage environments that are standard for the housing of laboratory animals have undue influence on lab animal behavior and biology.[12] These conditions can jeopardize both a basic premise of biomedical research—that healthy control animals are healthy—and the relevance of these kinds of animal studies to human conditions.[13]
Criticisms
Replication
Bruce Petrie (1996), a graduate student of Alexander's, attempted to
There has been little subsequent interest in replicating the studies due to several methodological issues present in the originals.[14] Issues included the small number of subjects used, the use of oral morphine, which does not mimic actual conditions of use (and introduces a confound because of the bitterness of morphine), and the measurement of morphine consumption, which differed between conditions. Other problems included equipment failures, lost data and rat deaths. However, some researchers have shown an interest in "conceptual" replication to continue exploring the contribution of environmental and social enrichment to addiction.[14]
Media interpretation
Journalist
Researchers have re-iterated that the results of Alexander's studies highlight issues with rat models kept in bare-bones lab environments, and help implicate the environment as a contributing factor to addiction. However, the media has overstated the studies' importance by suggesting it represents a paradigm shift in research, and that the environment is the only—or the key—factor in addiction.[3]
See also
References
- ^ S2CID 27896734.
- ^ a b Slater, Lauren. (2004) Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century, W.W. Norton & Company.
- ^ S2CID 53097039.
- S2CID 284415.
- ^ Alexander, Bruce K., (2001) "The Myth of Drug-Induced Addiction", a paper delivered to the Canadian Senate, January 2001, retrieved December 12, 2004.
- ^ S2CID 45068460.
- S2CID 6910048.)
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - PMID 19741591.
- PMID 18955698.
- PMID 22334125.
- PMID 18463628.
- PMID 23574171.
- PMID 28661398.
- ^ ISSN 2670-3815.
- ^ "Johann Hari". 2006-05-05. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
- ^ Hari, Johann (9 July 2015). "Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong" – via www.ted.com.
- ^ Can You Trust Kurzgesagt Videos?. Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell. Mar 3, 2019. Event occurs at 3 minutes 27 seconds. Archived from the original on 2021-12-22 – via YouTube.
This stance is still held by a number of addiction professionals, and we're not saying it's wrong, but a lot of others disagree, and it's not correct to present it as the truth ... We simplified an idea so much, that it made a great story, but became distorting.
Further reading
- Hadaway P.F., Alexander B.K., Coambs R.B., Beyerstein B. (1979). "The effect of housing and gender on preference for morphine-sucrose solutions in rats". Psychopharmacology. 66 (1): 87–91. S2CID 27896734.)
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - Alexander B.K., Beyerstein B.L., Hadaway P.F., Coambs R.B. (1981). "Effect of early and later colony housing on oral ingestion of morphine in rats". Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior. 15 (4): 571–576. S2CID 284415.)
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - Alexander B.K. (1985). "Drug use, dependence, and addiction at a British Columbia university: Good news and bad news". Canadian Journal of Higher Education. 15 (2): 77–91. .
- Alexander B.K. (1987). "The disease and adaptive models of addiction: A framework evaluation". Journal of Drug Issues. 17: 47–66. S2CID 146829170.
- Alexander, B.K. (1990) Peaceful measures: Canada's way out of the War on Drugs, Toronto University Press. ISBN 0-8020-6753-0
- Alexander, B.K. (2000) "The globalization of addiction," Addiction Research
- Drucker, E. (1998) "Drug Prohibition and Public Health," U.S. Public Health Service, Vol. 114
- Goldstein, A. Molecular and Cellular Aspects of the Drug Addictions. Springer-Verlag, 1990. ISBN 0-387-96827-X
- Goldstein, A.From Biology to Drug Policy, Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-19-514664-6
- Website of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy
- Peele, Stanton. A discussion about addiction, archived link from July 7, 2004.
- MacBride, Katie (September 5, 2017). "This 38-year-old study is still spreading bad ideas about addiction". The Outline. Retrieved September 11, 2017.
External links
- Much More Than A Drug Problem Bruce Alexander's lecture in Vancouver Institute 5.2.2011.
- Rat Park drug experiment comic – Stuart McMillen comics
- "Rat Park and Other Children's Stories". The Orange Papers. 2015-08-10. Archived from the original on 2017-12-13.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - Ahmed, Serge H; Lenoir, Magalie; Guillem, Karine (February 2013). "Neurobiology of addiction versus drug use driven by lack of choice". S2CID 36152939.