Conditioned Place Preference as a Preclinical Model for Screening Pharmacotherapies for Drug Abuse

Conditioned place preference (CPP) is established by pairing a context conditioned stimulus with an abused drug. With repeated context-drug pairings, the context alone acquires positive incentive value that elicits approach behavior. While CPP can be and is frequently applied to identify the reinforcing effects of drugs, this chapter will instead cover different applications: (1) efficacy studies in developing novel pharmacotherapies for drug abuse and (2) preclinical safety assessment of the abuse liability of novel drugs in the development of medications. Depending on when a potential pharmacotherapeutic is administered, either acquisition or expression of drug CPP can be blocked. In addition, following a period of extinction to the context, a pharmacotherapeutic may block reinstatement of drug seeking. Some results obtained with stimulant-, opioid-, and ethanol-induced reward are covered to illustrate the versatility of CPP for identifying novel targets for medication development.