Influence of housing conditions on the acquisition of intravenous heroin and cocaine self-administration in rats

Group-housed and individually housed rats were tested for the acquisition of a lever-pressing response reinforced by intravenous heroin or cocaine; animals in each housing condition quickly learned to self-administer drug. In the first experiment the isolated rats learned to self-administer heroin earlier than the group-housed animals, but the two groups self-administered similar levels of heroin by the fifth week of testing. In the second experiment cocaine self-administration was learned with equal speed in the two groups, and similar levels of cocaine were self-administered by both groups throughout the experiment. These data indicate that while social isolation can influence levels of heroin self-administration, isolation is not a necessary condition for heroin or cocaine injections to be reinforcing.