Date of Award

Summer 8-2015

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

David Echevarria

Committee Chair Department

Psychology

Committee Member 2

Richard Mohn

Committee Member 2 Department

Educational Studies and Research

Committee Member 3

Brad Dufrene

Committee Member 3 Department

Psychology

Abstract

Addiction and substance abuse commonly lead to negative outcomes such damaged health, domestic violence, child abuse, failure in school, and loss of employment. In the United States, hundreds of billions of dollars accrue annually in costs associated with healthcare, crime and lost productivity due to addiction. Efficacious treatments remain few in number, the development of which will be facilitated by comprehension of environmental, genetic, pharmacological and neurobiological mechanisms implicated in the pathogenesis of addiction. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) has recently gained popularity as a model organism of complex brain disorders (e.g., substance use disorder). Behavioral quantification within the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm serves as a measure of the rewarding qualities of a given stimulus (e.g., drug). If animals develop an increase in preference to spend time in an environment that had previously been paired with drug administration, the drug is inferred to have rewarding properties. This project reports the effects of acute (1 day) and chronic (7 days) exposure to alcohol, caffeine and nicotine on zebrafish CPP behavior.

Doctoral dissertation: http://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/1388/

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