The Addiction Of Isolation
Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 17:01
in Psychology & Sociology
Rats socially isolated during a critical period in adolescence are more vulnerable to addiction to amphetamine and alcohol, according to a new paper. Amphetamine addiction is also harder to extinguish in the socially isolated rats. These effects persist even after the rats are reintroduced into the community of other rats. "Basically the animals become more manipulatable," said Hitoshi Morikawa, associate professor of neurobiology in the College of Natural Sciences. "They're more sensitive to reward, and once conditioned the conditioning takes longer to extinguish. We've been able to observe this at both the behavioral and neuronal level." read more