Short- and long-lasting behavioral and neurochemical adaptations: relationship with patterns of cocaine administration and expectation of drug effects in rats

Cocaine dependence is a significant public health problem, characterized by periods of abstinence. Chronic exposure to drugs of abuse induces important modifications on neuronal systems, including the dopaminergic system. The pattern of administration is an important factor that should be taken into consideration to study the neuroadaptations. We compared the effects of intermittent (once daily) and binge (three times a day) cocaine treatments for 1 (WD1) and 14 (WD14) days after the last cocaine injection on spontaneous locomotor activity and dopamine (DA) levels in the nucleus accumbens (Nac). The intermittent treatment led to a spontaneous increase in DA (WD1/WD14), and in locomotor activity (WD1) at the exact hour which rats were habituated to receive a cocaine injection. These results underline that taking into consideration the hours of the day at which the experiments are performed is crucial. We also investigated these behavioral and neurochemical adaptations in response to an acute cocaine challenge on WD1 and WD14. We observed that only the binge treatment led to sensitization of locomotor effects of cocaine, associated to a DA release sensitization in the Nac, whereas the intermittent treatment did not. We demonstrate that two different patterns of administration induced distinct behavioral and neurochemical consequences. We unambiguously demonstrated that the intermittent treatment induced drug expectation associated with higher basal DA level in the Nac when measured at the time of chronic cocaine injection and that the binge treatment led to behavioral and sensitization effects of cocaine.