How to achieve chronic intravenous drug self-administration in mice

IntroductionSelf-administration, the best animal model of drug addiction, requires implantation of indwelling jugular catheters. Surgical procedures in mice, the most common species for transgenic modeling, are difficult owing to size and scale. The goal of this paper was to describe how to achieve successful intravenous drug self-administration in mice.MethodThe surgical and self-administration training procedures developed for rats and other species have been adopted for mice and described in a step-by-step manner with reference to sources for equipment, materials, and parts.ResultsThe method can be used for studying self-administration behavior in freely moving mice up to 4 weeks. The relatively quick loss of catheter patency was due to growth of neointima tissue.DiscussionDrug self-administration is achievable in mice, and the model is limited only by eventual loss of catheter patency, a process probably triggered by mechanical damage of the endothelium, by the effect of drug injections, or a combination of these factors.