The Effects of Quinpirole on Place Preference Conditioning

The Effects of Quinpirole on Place Preference Conditioning Drugs of abuse are escalating in today’s society without a clear understanding of the mechanisms involved in reward and craving. Uncovering the key components in the reward pathway will make it more likely to design appropriate pharmaceuticals in the war against addiction. The purpose of our research was to begin to characterize the dopamine D2-receptor agonist, quinpirole. Ten male and 10 female CD-1 mice were conditioned with quinpirole for 3 consecutive days, and place-preference was reexamined on the 4th day. Mice learn to associate the rewarding effects of drugs with the environment in which they are in and when it is a rewarding drug, mice will display a conditioned place preference (CPP) for that environment. CPP is generally thought to be mediated through the dopamine system, and it would be likely that dopamine agonists such as cocaine or quinpirole would produce a place-preference in the mice, however here we report that mice fail to form CPP with quinpirole, which may make it a promising candidate to wean addicted individuals off of other dopamine ligands such as cocaine. It has been suggested that the dopaminergic system in the midbrain is necessary in CPP. Therefore the aim of this study is to test the conditioning effects of quinpirole on mu opioid knock-out mice and to indirectly see if the reward system of this dopamine ligand different in the genetically altered mic