Effects of enriched environment on morphine-induced reward in mice

Drug addiction and abuse have been extremely serious problems in our society. The effect of different environmental conditions on the susceptibility of human to drug addiction and abuse is still not fully understood. It was recently reported that enriched environment can trigger long-term modification in neural functions and might prevent the occurrence of pathogenic behaviors. Here we investigated the effects of enriched environment on morphine-induced reward in mice. We found that the enriched environment attenuated the acute morphine (10 mg/kg)-induced hyperlocomotion and repeated morphine (10 mg/kg)-induced behavioral sensitization. Moreover, the environmental condition blocked the conditioned place preference (CPP) of the mice induced by morphine (5 mg/kg). Associated with behavioral alterations, the expression of FosB-like proteins in the nucleus accumbens of the brain was down-regulated in the mice housed in the enriched environmental condition, but not in the standard environment. Taken together, these results indicate that enriched environmental condition leads to decrease in sensitivity of the mice to morphine-induced reward.