What can Rats Tell Us about Addiction?

This article explains how social experiments with rats can show us interesting insights into addiction. The traditional view of addiction is that those who use drugs do so because they like the feeling that the drug gives them. In other words, it is about the pleasure response in the brain. In a study with rats, they isolated rats and gave them a choice of opiate spiked water or regular. After a while they clearly preferred the opiate water ‘because it gave them a pleasure feeling’. After some time they then placed these same rats into an environment with 19 other rats and lots of things to play with. They found that these rats stopped drinking the spiked water. This might suggest that lacks in socialization may contribute to addiction. When thinking about it in human terms you could think about individuals who lacked in social supports or resources. One example could be individuals who have been traumatized or abused as children because they are more at risk to develop a distrust of people, especially those who care for them. The mistrust causes isolation. In turn these individuals may use the addictive behaviors to not feel what they feel or to feel less instead of to simply feel good.

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