Drug addiction research using intravenous self-administration procedure in mice

A major clinical problem in treating drug abusers or addicts is the high rate of relapse to abuse even long after abstinence. In drug dependence research, drug self-administration displays excellent face validity, good construct validity, and appealing predictive validity with respect to drug consumption in humans. Because of the technical feasibility of intravenous drug self-administration, it is limited in mice relative to larger animals. Nevertheless, technical innovations made in the last 10 years have vastly improved the feasibility of long-term studies in mice. In addition, mice with targeted gene mutations, such as transgenic and knockout mice, provide a powerful tool for investigating candidate genes that may be involved in abuse of drugs in humans. Therefore, it is essential for researchers to extend the extinction-reinstatement procedure in mice. However, there are few reports that proven the relationship between genetic factor and relapsing behavior using drug self-administration procedure in mice. Based on recent documented information and our own experiences, in the present review, we described some procedural considerations for the successful establishment of drug self-administration procedure in mice, and then summarized some behavioral characteristics of genetic mouse models under the drug self-administration, and reinstatement procedure.