University of Minnesota Primate Research - Drug Addiction

Drug Addiction

Non-human primates are used by the university to research the effects of drug addiction. The studies are led by Marilyn Carroll, a professor of neuroscience. As of October 2000, Carroll's laboratory was using 34 rhesus monkeys in these studies, according to a meeting of the university's Social Concerns Committee, a figure confirmed in a May 15, 2006 census obtained by the Minnesota Primate Freedom Project, a chapter of the national Primate Freedom Project. Carroll has received $8,888,593 in grants for her work from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1996.

Carroll's research involves training monkeys and rats — for example by restricting food intake — to self-administer drugs that humans misuse. In the experiments, the animals drink alcohol, smoke, and are given cocaine, heroin, caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol intravenously (only rats self-administer intravenously). She writes that "several phases of the addiction process are modeled, such as acquisition, maintenance, withdrawal, craving, and relapse."

Her work has shown that antidepressants and behavioral or environmental changes, such as adding sweet-tasting drinking solutions, reduce the self-administration of drugs in laboratory animals. Other changes, such as limiting food intake, led to increased drug administration.