Effects of Intermittent- Vs Long-Access Cocaine Self-Administration on Addiction-Like Behaviors and NAc Glutamatergic Plasticity

Long Access self-administration procedures (LgA, 6hrs+/day) have become the gold-standard in the addiction field because they produce addiction-like behaviors, and changes in brain not seen following shorter drug access (1-2 hrs/day). However, Zimmer and colleagues recently developed an intermittent access self-administration procedure (IntA) to better model the patterns of cocaine use seen in addicts. IntA produces more robust addiction-like behaviors compared to LgA (cocaine-motivation, reinstatement, and cocaine-seeking) despite much less drug intake. Whether these distinct patterns of cocaine exposure produce similar or different alterations in nucleus accumbens (NAc) function is poorly understood, and there is limited understanding of the behavioral effects of IntA across sex.