Incentive salience, not psychomotor sensitization or tolerance, drives escalation of cocaine self-administration in heterogeneous stock rats
From NPP BrainPod by Springer Nature
May 15, 2026 · 10 min
About this episode
This episode discusses theories of addiction and drug use escalation, focusing on incentive salience as a driving factor in cocaine self-administration.
There are a number of theories that have been studied to try to explain addiction and drug use escalation, and thus to also create animal models of that behavior that can then serve to help develop treatments. One theory for escalation is that people feel worse and worse over time and so they take the drug to feel better. Another is that they just don’t get as much of a reaction to the drug and so need more and more of it to get the euphoria. And then there’s something called incentive salience, which is a craving for the drug. Read the full study here: Incentive salience, not psychomotor sensitization or tolerance, drives escalation of cocaine self-administration in heterogeneous stock rats | Neuropsychopharmacology Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Topics covered
- addiction
- drug use escalation
- animal models
- cocaine self-administration
- incentive salience
Keywords
- addiction
- cocaine
- self-administration
- incentive salience
- psychomotor sensitization
- tolerance
- animal models
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Springer Nature
Books & works: Neuropsychopharmacology
More episodes of NPP BrainPod
- Oxytocin neurons in the anterior and posterior paraventricular nucleus have distinct behavioral functions and electrophysiological profiles · February 23, 2026 · 10 min
- The genetics of cannabis lifetime use · January 7, 2026 · 10 min
- Older and wiser? The neural correlates of worry induction and reappraisal in older adults · October 27, 2025 · 10 min
- Grey matter morphometry in young adult e-cigarette users, tobacco cigarette users & non-using controls · July 29, 2025 · 9 min
- Validation of L-type calcium channel blocker amlodipine as a novel ADHD treatment through cross-species analysis, drug-target Mendelian randomization, and clinical evidence from medical records · June 4, 2025 · 10 min
- Rapid and sustained antidepressant effects of vaporized N,N-Dimethyltryptamine: A Phase 2a clinical trial in Treatment-Resistant Depression. · April 18, 2025 · 10 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the NPP BrainPod podcast page.