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Friends, I have a strange ask. Search engines are useless now so I'm hoping someone will know what I'm talking about.

When I was in undergrad, we read a study about drug use in rats. The researchers found that rats can get addicted to drugs, and when you stick a rat in a cage with no community, they almost always get addicted. But when you give them a little rat society with friends and fun stuff to do, some use recreationally but almost none become dependent.

What study was this??

in reply to Dr. Amy, Psy.D.

Simon Zerafa
Simon Zerafa
• •

Was this the Rat Park experiment? 🙂🤷‍♂️

ukat.co.uk/blog/medicine/what-…


What can the Rat Park experiment teach us about addiction? - UK Addiction Treatment Centres

Ever heard of the Rat Park experiment? In the late ’70s, psychologist Bruce Alexander set up a fascinating study. Rats in a fun, social “Rat Park” were way less likely to self-administer drugs than those in dull, isolated cages.
UK Addiction Treatment Centres
in reply to Dr. Amy, Psy.D.

Prainbow (she/her) 🏔️Colorado
Prainbow (she/her) 🏔️Colorado
• •
“There has been little subsequent interest in replicating the studies due to several methodological issues present in the originals.”
in reply to Dr. Amy, Psy.D.

Prainbow (she/her) 🏔️Colorado
Prainbow (she/her) 🏔️Colorado
• •
I'm in the recovery community and this study gets referred to a lot, but never with the reservations or criticisms mentioned in the wiki article. The reference to this study is used to undermine treatment approaches with real efficacy. Getting people to delay or avoid treatment can cost lives. It's irresponsible.
in reply to Prainbow (she/her) 🏔️Colorado

Dr. Amy, Psy.D.
Dr. Amy, Psy.D.
• •
@Prainbow They use this to avoid treatment?! The way it was presented to me was addressing underlying issues that cause addiction. People need help and support NOW and also systems issues need addressing to provide community support and for prevention
@Prainbow (she/her) 🏔️Colorado
in reply to Dr. Amy, Psy.D.

Prainbow (she/her) 🏔️Colorado
Prainbow (she/her) 🏔️Colorado
• •
I see what you're saying. It is critical that we address underlying issues of inequality, poverty and lack of access to basic human resources. I am speaking about lay people in my general community who may or not have a need for recovery but feel the need to push back on the idea of treatment or abstinence.
in reply to Dr. Amy, Psy.D.

LumiWorx
LumiWorx
• •

... part 1 of 3:
practicalrecovery.com/prblog/r…

The same as others have mentioned. Im not in the research field, I just used stract.com to find it. #Stract is an #OpenSource alternative to #Google and isn't tainted with #AI or #ads .

#AI #opensource #google #ads #Stract
in reply to Dr. Amy, Psy.D.

Jason
Jason
• •

is it this one?
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/729126…

This one seems to be the most widely referenced in popular articles. I'm not familiar with the psychology literature.


Effect of early and later colony housing on oral ingestion of morphine in rats - PubMed

Male and female rats were raised from weaning either in isolation or in a large colony. At 65 days of age, half the rats in each environment were moved to the other.
PubMed
in reply to Jason

Dr. Amy, Psy.D.
Dr. Amy, Psy.D.
• •
@jason I think this is it!! This is why I love Mastodon, thank you!!
@Jason
in reply to Dr. Amy, Psy.D.

Dr. Amy, Psy.D.
Dr. Amy, Psy.D.
• •

THANK YOU!! teh.entar.net/@jason/113188538…

Jason

2024-09-23 19:33:46


is it this one?
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/729126…

This one seems to be the most widely referenced in popular articles. I'm not familiar with the psychology literature.



Effect of early and later colony housing on oral ingestion of morphine in rats - PubMed

Male and female rats were raised from weaning either in isolation or in a large colony. At 65 days of age, half the rats in each environment were moved to the other.
PubMed

in reply to Dr. Amy, Psy.D.

Cy
Cy
• •

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/…

Using this model, we showed that rewarding social interaction suppresses drug self-administration, relapse to drug seeking, and brain responses to drug-associated cues.

An operant social self-administration and choice model in rats

It is difficult to translate results from animal research on addiction to understanding the behavior of human drug addicts. Despite decades of basic research on neurobiological mechanisms of drug addiction, treatment options remain largely unchanged.
PubMed Central (PMC)
in reply to Dr. Amy, Psy.D.

ティージェーグレェ
ティージェーグレェ
• •

Seems familiar from something I read once upon a time too.

Maybe this:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/729126…

Colloquially that series of studies were apparently referred to as "Rat Park"?

This also appears to be similar sorts of research from 2018:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/…


Effect of early and later colony housing on oral ingestion of morphine in rats - PubMed

Male and female rats were raised from weaning either in isolation or in a large colony. At 65 days of age, half the rats in each environment were moved to the other.
PubMed
in reply to Dr. Amy, Psy.D.

nellie-m
nellie-m
• •
I don’t know, but using hashtags might increase the number of people who could know considerably. Just saying.

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