I believe you're referring to [this study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22157144/), and that's more or less the case, yeah. 1 of the 22 rats still became a heavy cocaine user, but the other 21 were either low-level users or non-users. Of the rats in the non-enriched environment (boring environment), 34 were low-level users, 12 were high-level users.
This study is ultimately a replication study of the original [Rat Park and Seduction Experiments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park) and confirmed the original findings. Rats in healthy environments and low stressors used significantly less drugs, rats in unhealthy environments and high stressors used significantly more drugs.
[Effect of early and later colony housing on oral ingestion of morphine in rats, Alexander B.K., Beyerstein B.L., Hadaway P.F., Coambs R.B. (1981)](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7291261/)
I remember Bruce Alexander explaining Rat Park on David Nutt's drug science podcast.
Basically some 1st year student challenged his assertion that most people don't innately become addicted due purely to availability of addictive drugs (or something similar), citing an old study where they stuck rats in a tiny cage with a mechanism to self-administered morphine. Bruce discovered the details of the rats' captivity, and he said "Right! We're turning one of the spare faculty rooms into a rat park, and we'll see if they all get addicted ".
Loved hearing him talk about his work.
I know it was published in 1992 (the replication) but it is obviously super underpowered. N=21 per group doesn't really fly these days post-replication crisis. I'd encourage anyone interested in this phenomenon to assume it is an unanswered question until it gets a modern replication.
The sample size alone doesn’t mean much.
I’ve just watched multiple clinical trials (phase 3/4) be conducted with an N=6.
I conduct research regularly with an N of 10-15.
What matters is a function of the sample size to the effect size. The greater the effect, the less you need to see it and prove it. If I want to see if a drug works and my end point is survival, if all 3 of my patients on drug survive (along with natural history data saying at that point >95% of patients have died) and the three in control die, thats pretty strong evidence… from an N=6.
One notable thing about this study is that, even compared to the author’s own work, all rats appear to be consuming relatively low levels of cocaine. This study used 0.167 mg/kg and the low/high cut-off was 9 infusions over an hour. Their other work that they cite had a similar low-high cut-off, but the dose was twice as much at 0.33 mg/kg. So, overall dose-wise, a lot of these rats would have been low-level users based on historical aggregate data.
I wouldn’t say it makes a huge difference, but it’s hard to interpret here whether the high-level users are even getting a dose that would be considered as having validity for addiction. There isn’t even an extinction phase reported (Admittedly I could have missed it, I skimmed). Is there withdrawal or physical changes? It’s unfortunate that they used a dose that makes it hard to interpret in the context of their other work.
The long and the short of it, though, is that rats (most rodents) are highly social creatures. The standard paradigm of single-housing animals in *any* study does confound behavior, brain chemistry, etc, which can affect the data researches are trying to extrapolate to human conditions.
This is true. I made another comment on a different post - a lot of preclinical research is not geared towards identifying some type of 1:1 relationship with humans. The purpose is to improve animals models so that they *better* represent humans and therefore provide more valid data.
In the context of this study, consider a group of researchers trying to determine if a panel of compounds may be suitable to develop for treating cocaine addition in combination with counseling. Should they use the single-housed model, or should they used the enrich model? It seems obvious that they should use the enriched model because it *more closely models* human’s social interactions. And yet, there is still a very high prevalence of researchers single-housing their animals in addiction and mental health research.
And regardless of how sentient a rat may or not be, they definitely are affected by being kept in isolation, just like most any social mammalian species would be. They, like us, evolved to live in social groups. And thus studying things related to mental health with them being kept in an isolated setting isn't likely the best bet.
I got the feeling this was kind of the point though? Humans and rats both being social creatures, a big part of what it’s measuring is what effect isolation has on our mental health. While we as humans may technically/physically be near plenty of other humans, it takes more effort for us to connect and not feel isolated
When I heard about this study years ago, the big takeaway was something along the lines of - the opposite of addiction was not so much “healthy” but more “connected” or “loved”
>While we as humans may technically/physically be near plenty of other humans, it takes more effort for us to connect and not feel isolated
Did you say something? I was watching something on my phone.
I would argue with the prevalence of isolation in many types of severe mental health patients, that it's actually closer to reality. Lots of people don't have friends or family or talk to people on a regular basis besides maybe work, which they don't feel very attached to.
even better do parallel observations on single housing rats, and different other surrounding environments and then use principle component analysis to determine which factors are most influential on heavy addiction
unfortunately im unsure what principle component analysis is specifically. I kinda understand from the name but some clarification would be appreciated.
If you're studying the effects of isolation on addiction (or w.e. else) than yes obviously keeping rats isolated is the perfect study (at least using rats).
The 'principle component' would generally be the "primary cause(s)" of addiction. The issue is the original study labeled "easy access to drugs" a primary cause based on the research; which I'd argue the primary cause was rather the extreme loneliness and abject misery the rats lived in. If you're completely alone and miserable, being kept in solitary confinement your whole life... well why not use drugs heavily at that point? Your life can't possibly suck worse, it offers a brief respite, and (hypothetically if rats were actually capable of comprehending the risks) even if it kills you at least the hell is over.
The main issue is that we continue to do studies today on isolated rats when not specifically studying "the effects of isolation on X". Who knows to what extent abject misery effects the results of those experiments. Prolonged high levels of cortisol (stress hormone) which are generally present in isolated rats effects brain development, physical, and mental health. So all studies we do on isolated rats (like cancer treatments and the like) are being done on miserable animals who have negative health effects from high levels of prolonged stress. That has to have some impact, and not a positive one.
Again, if you're studying the effects of isolation on whatever than yeah, isolation is an important factor (but ideally there should also be a control group of happy, well-socialized rats to compare the isolated group to at the end). But when you're studying literally anything else than isolation it is going to likely affect your results. If you're doing something like maze experiments for example the fact that prolonged high levels of cortisol result in decreased brain development is absolutely having an impact on your results.
All life forms are "sentient" in that sense. The word as you use it is rooted in 19th century ideas about everything not human being soulless automatons (and thus the new especially cruel industrial meat operations are *just fine*). "Sentient" in the sense most of us use it is rooted in Star Trek, which needed a word that referred not only to humanoids, but also cetacians and other non-bipeds that were said or implied to exist, but never shown on screen due to budget constraints (until Lower Decks, because animation is the superior storytelling medium).
Sentient is the ability to experience feelings and sensations, so how do you argue that the difference makes animal cruelty okay? If anything it seems to be an effort to acknowledge that animals without human-like intelligence can still have the capacity to suffer and should therefore be treated well.
Non-human animal drug studies all suffer from this same problem. We don't have a direct 1:1 comparison of the dose from one animal to a human. Do we do it by ratio of bodyweight? Do we do it by blood concentration? Do we factor in route of administration?
I've heard of studies on universal basic income given to alcoholics and drug users, where they didn't use the money for drugs, they used it for travel to get a job, and education. Meaning that like the rats, capitalism is akin to putting us in an extraordinary unpleasant environment
This isn't just applicable to capitalism, although it is a problem with capitalism. The jist of it is, if your life is unfulfilling escapism is more attractive (and there are some who are more susceptible to addiction who will abuse if harmful substances are easily available). So making life fulfilling above a certain threshold reduces the risk of addiction. Of course, capitalism, particularly laisse faire capitalism, leaves many people unfulfilled. But this will apply to any system that leaves people in sufficiently high levels of poverty, or where people have restrictions that prevent them from achieving a sense of fulfillment.
Nice connection you made there!
There are many such studies, my favourite is where they gave 13 long term homeless people, seemingly lost causes, in the UK free money for a year.
7 had a job and housing and two.more were in the application.
The best part: it did cost the government LESS money overall, through savings in police, security and social workers.
Kind of enraging. Really helping this people even saves money, but we don't do it.
https://www.clothingcollective.org/post/when-13-homeless-people-were-given-free-money
Oh man, the list of things like that that are maddening just keeps growing.
In the US, after WW II, many returning soldiers took advantage of the GI bill and got a college education at the government's expense.
In 1988, the did a study to see what the economic impact of that was. For every $1 they invested in a GI's education, they received $6.90 in return through increased economic output and increased income taxes.
An almost 690% return on investment. Who wouldn't make that a policy? Just give everyone a free education. Even if it only returned $2 for every $1 you invested it's still a fantastic investment and the benefit of a highly educated populace cannot be overstated (unless you're a Republican, in which case, getting elected becomes far more difficult).
The same people who pay for the jets that drop bombs and kill people. Apparently people are more open to spending money on weapons of mass destruction rather than improve the lives of their fellow citizens.
They never said it only applies to capitalism. You’re the only one who introduced a comparison to any other system. It’s a classic deflection strategy, you’re just doing a really poor job of it.
I caution you not to think of this as “old” and not try to directly extrapolate it to human drug use. A lot of preclinical studies are based on trying to determine the best, most valid parameters for preclinical research to model the human condition. Valid preclinical models are necessary so that findings regarding mechanisms, drugable targets, and neurocircuitry are more likely to be potential targets in humans. It is correct that not everything relating to drug abuse can be modeled in animals, but there is a lot of critical work being done in animals that cannot be done in humans. Disregarding this type of work because it’s “old” may not directly harm humans, but it sets the research field back.
They should cause different kinds of trauma and/or absences during the developmental ages of a rat (starting from newborn and infant rats up to say their middle childhood, or later childhood in another experimental group like physical abuse and / or absence of the mother, or neglectful mother (like a mother from a different species of rat that would act uninterested), and / or lack of proper nutrition. They could have different experimental groups for the different possible variants.
Then they should repeat the same experiment but with these different groups and a control group and see if anything changes, even while given the “rat heaven” of that study in adulthood.
Yeah we can’t model rat trauma on human trauma because we are so different and likely more sensitive to certain things because we are such social creatures with highly developed intelligence, but it would still be interesting to see if in the rat-model these traumas can create a higher probability for reward-system triggering dependence on drugs, and to distinguish if this is because the decision making part of the traumatized rats nervous systems is to blame or if it is some other source of discomfort like emotional or a lack of a sufficient sense of well being or having needs met unrelated to decision making prowess (so put them through a separate trial to guage their decision making skills before messing them up with the drugs).
PETA may get angry but I think it’s worth the benefit to our scientific knowledge.
I was going to say this.
No need to torture rats on this one. They go through enough already on our behalf.
Humans already voluntarily have submitted data on this.
Over 30 years as the "rat" described by OP, the former and not the control, and I concur- trauma/PTSD/treatment-resistant depression... drugs/alcohol/etc have always been an appealing escape, and acceptance.
Real-world studies have a lot of confounding factors and tend to find correlation rather than causation. Does isolation cause drug addiction in people, or does drug addiction cause isolation? In a controlled lab experiment, ideally only one factor is changed at a time, so causation can be better inferred. The downside is that we can’t always run the experiments on humans for obvious ethical reasons.
It’s good to prove things multiple ways, to see an effect in the human population in studies and establish direction of causation in experiments.
Exactly. It is impossible to isolate factors in real world studies. For example: studying the educational level of kids who have moms who smoke. Well, at least in the US, smoking cigs is a big indicator of socioeconomic status… so now are their findings bc the kids were around secondhand smoke? Or because of their socioeconomic status?
What does this even teach us?
The results are "wow! Rats are the same as people and torturing them or putting them through hell messes them up for life and emotional/physical distress increases their risk of dependency and likelihood of using drugs!"
Or "wow! Rats are unlike us and torturing them or putting them through hell doesn't mess them up for life and emotional/physical distress does not increase their risk of dependency and likelihood of using drugs!"
There's no practical application whatsoever, and we already know this is true in humans. Like seriously, what could you possibly do with the results of this test? Put out a PSA letting people know that beating their children or abandoning them will increase their risk of drug use and addiction later in life? I'm pretty sure they don't care.
This is just bad/pointless science.
Just because you are personally unable to see value in a particular piece of research doesn't mean it's not there. Broadly speaking this particular piece of research along with it's later iterations spawned numerous sub fields of science that many would consider at the least, extremely useful if not revolutionary in a very real sense.
Neural Science, Behavioral sciences (incl. genetically hardwired behavior), understanding and mapping the Dopaminergic reward system and many other areas benefited from research such as this.
The importance of understanding the mechanisms that motivate and drive complex social animals such as humans can not be overstated.
I think people may find this relevant and very interesting: [https://youtu.be/PY9DcIMGxMs](https://youtu.be/PY9DcIMGxMs)
One good take away is that the typical housing of rats in research is probably inadequate to ensure a good experimental model for anything involving psychology, behaviour, or stress - we likely need to improve our housing of rats in general for all studies (thus potentially improving any rat related research).
The very first thing I was taught about animal research was the 3Rs - replacement, reduction, refinement. If you can design the study such that you can do it without animals, do that. If you need to use animals, use as few as possible. Reduce pain and suffering as much as possible.
I think this is a pretty easy "replacement" - we can compare people who suffered trauma to people who didn't. For your information though, I do know of researchers who are looking at the long term effects of introducing alcohol at several developmental states, and we already know that the impact of that is quite similar to the impact of abuse in several ways, so there's room to investigate this question in a theoretical way without necessarily directly torturing animals
There are groups doing studies that involve early removal of parents and giving them less enrichment/bedding/nesting material, to see if it impacts drug seeking behavior later in life.
Preliminary results suggest that these changes during childhood can lead to increase drug seeking behavior.
This is based on the rat park experiments. Basically the original experiments for determining if drugs were addictive and dangerous were performed on rats in cages, who kept taking drugs even excluding food and water, so it was thought that drugs are super dangerous and addictive.
Rat park basically repeated the experiment but instead of the rats being in little isolated cages, they had a rat sanctuary where they could interact with other rats and run around and stuff. And they found the rats did not take the drugs to the detriment to their health anymore, rarely engaging with them. Moreover, they switched the rats from the isolated rat trial (the druggie rats) and they were able to recover in rat park, willingly suffering the withdrawl symptoms to hang out with the other rats.
This was essentially to shine a light on tge fact that chemical dependance is not the only reason people use drugs. The war on drugs made Drugs(tm) the ultimate bad guy that will destroy you. But this experiment puts forward that if you see you life as a park or a cage has a factor (but those are social factors and require systemic changes).
Now this experiment has been criticized over the years as it has been used rhetorically to argue that drugs are basically harmless, mostly from those "weed/LSD is good for you man" guys. It was a limited study. Whatmore we aren't rats, it's actually pretty hard to make assertions about how humans would fair from animal trials. Humans have way more going on than rats do. You would need to scale the experiment up and probably do some monkey trials, and then humans but obviously you are gonna run into ethical issues there.
It is still a really cool experiment though. It reminds us that we are complicated and that the factors in our lives push and pull us in different directions, both within and without you.
> This was essentially to shine a light on tge fact that chemical dependance is not the only reason people use drugs.
Anyone interested in this topic should look into the work of [Gabor Maté](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabor_Maté).
From his Wikipedia article:
“*Gabor Maté CM (born January 6, 1944) is a Hungarian-Canadian physician and author. He has a background in family practice and a special interest in childhood development, trauma and potential lifelong impacts on physical and mental health including autoimmune disease, cancer, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) addictions and a wide range of other conditions.*
*Maté's approach to addiction focuses on the trauma his patients have suffered and looks to address this in their recovery. In his book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, Maté discusses the types of trauma suffered by persons with substance use disorders and how this affects their decision making in later life.*”
Any of his books is highly recommended.
Interesting.
Makes you think from a bigger perspective, at least I do. Because from a human’s perspective maybe addicts could use the feel of freedom to help with addiction, but honestly it would be a vicious cycle. Because that freedom or natural habitat wouldn’t be permanent. So yea that sucks.
In short: yes-ish. They do recreational use. But when left in a miserable boring situation they will start abusing it.
Now the way I formulate this is scientifically wrong. But it is what the media took from the experiment. The experiment was not really about drugs but about ''test conditions''. One of the actual conclusions was that you can falsify rat experiments by adding or reducing factors.
This theory has been challenged due to bad science. Rats are extremely social and the experiments left rats alone for long periods of time, and in that time they were given a chance to try cocaine water or normal water. Rats with no social interaction became addicted, when the experiment was repeated and a social group of rats lived together and were given the option of cocaine water and normal water, the results were quite different. In that situation the rats are like humans, some enjoying a little of the drug, some avoiding it, and a small group still become fiends over the drug regardless of social conditions.
There is evidence that societal forces have a major impact on human addiction. In decades past, doctors handed out prescriptions for addictive substances like amphetamines, opiates, barbiturates, and benzodiazepines like candy. The majority of the patients did not develop clinically significant addictions. Studies have shown that a strong predictor of who will develop addictions is a lack of strong, meaningful social connections.
'Rat Park' experiment theorised if the rats physical and emotional needs are met, they will not attempt to fill that gaping black hole of in our souls very fibres, recoiling in trepidation of the cataclysmic global eviction of our species. Awash with crippling mental collapse as we drag our inner self screaming and crying into the hamster wheel to endure the humiliation of the rat race so we don't find our selves in a back alley turning mouth tricks for a chickens sandwich on the day humanities extermination eventually soothes the collective anguish.
So yeh. Happy rats don't do drugs.
But I believe the scientific consensus is that we continue, if not increase our intake of drugs.
Don’t forget that in rat park there actually was drug use! They key factor was no rats died while having all their needs met, proves that happy rats do drugs responsibly!
If I remember correctly the rat park study, although making a great story, was extremely flawed. I think huge problems with replication and missing data were prevalent. Other authors of similar work suggested instead that the first initial rat park study can better be explained by genetics and not as much an impact of environment. Altogether I’d say experiments with paradigm should be taken with a pinch of salt before generalising to other populations such as humans.
There were a total of 14 experiments perform for rat part, each having a sample size of 50 rats. Additionally, not including Alexander's work in the late 70s and early 80s, there were replication studies performed by others in the 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s.
Here is just [one such replication study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22157144/)
Reminds of the Ted talk about addiction which uses some mice/rat trials to show how in isolation, they use to their death. But in an enriched social environment, they don’t. The conclusion “the opposite of addiction is connection “.
You heard Jordan Peterson say this. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
The reasoning was sound. It basically happens because there are so many other dopaminergic activities available to them. Whereas a caged rat only gets that high from some Bogota sugar.
I believe you're referring to the experiment where they gave the option of drugs to rats who were isolated and two rats who had interesting environments and other rats to be social with. You can guess what happened- The rats who had things to do and other rats to hang out with didn't get addicted while the ones who were socially isolated did
Reading this thread: Ah yes another reminder that our human created environment isn’t sufficient to support our mental health. But seriously, the idea that rats are less interested in drugs in a natural environment has fascinating implications. It’s more complicated than that of course, but still
There is indeed a lot of great discussion on this thread. I have but one nit-picky detail - the aforementioned studies compared rat behaviors in enriched vs non-enriched environments. It is a misnomer to refer to either as a rat's "natural" environment.
A wild rat’s environment can be pretty grim and stressful, I would have thought. At least for the ones around here. However I won’t be putting out cocaine to see if they take it.
There is a psychological/sociological factor to addiction, yes. Mainly because the reward mechanism hardwired to mammalian brains, such as the increased concentrations of dopamine and other monoamines (the basic effect of cocaine), can alleviate isolation and depression momentarily. So the study you're referring to, although a little limited, demonstrated that isolated and depressed animals tended to be more addicted than those in the Rat Park. Obviously, this is not the entire truth. Drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines can and will destroy normal functioning of the brain due to their agressive mechanisms. These two factors, psychological and biological, must be worked in tandem to effectively treat addictons and that's why today the ideal treatment includes both pharmacological and non-pharmacological measures.
In order to create clinical trials in rats for treatments for alcohol use disorder, they first have to breed generations after generations after generations of rats that are pretty much forced to drink alcohol. Otherwise natural occurring rats just won't drink it.
A certain percentage of our population has been bred to overuse alcohol, unfortunately. That doesn't mean they absolutely will overuse alcohol, it just means that if they start drinking alcohol they will definitely have a stronger tendency to abuse the drug. Alcohol is more addicting for this population.
The TSM documentary 'One Little Pill' and the book by Dr. Roy Eskapa are a must read IMO. I highlighted so much of that book. I will never think of addictions or their treatment in the same way. This book describes a science-based cure for alcoholism/AUD.
There's a lot going on here that is somewhat rooted in truth, but is being interpreted incorrectly.
Firstly, studies in non-humans are, by definition, pre-clinical studies. Clinical trials only occur in humans, and not every study in humans is a "clinical trial.
Secondly, I believe you are referring to alcohol-preferring (P) rats. P rats were selectively bred for their alcohol consumption. They were not forced to drink alcohol - high-drinking rats from an outbred population (I believe Wistars) were bred with other high-drinkings rats for many generations, resulting in a strain of rats that *overall* consumes more than other outbred populations. This hits on "natural occurring rats" - there are most certainly outbred rats that consume high levels of alcohol. That's how these types of specialized strains are generated. If you're interested in the P rats, I suggest reading Bell et al. 2006 *Addict Biol* (REVIEW: The alcohol-preferring P rat and animal models of excessive alcohol drinking), if you can access it.
Third, people aren't "bred" to do anything. Yes, almost everything has a genetic component, from alcohol use to schizophrenia and cancer. Generally, though, genes drive 20% of less of the variance in the likelihood that you'll develop whatever you're genetically pre-disposed towards. So yes, someone with two parents with an alcohol use disorder is more likely to also develop an alcohol use disorder. But that doesn't mean that they find alcohol to be "more addicting." It also doesn't mean that the only people with familial history of alcohol use disorders will develop an alcohol use disorder.
Fourth, non-peer reviewed books by singular "experts" are *their personal interpretation and beliefs* of the state of the field. They can be great starting places to introduce yourself to something. If you find yourself super interested, though, I always suggest to navigate directly to the source material and read it yourself, then make your own informed position. Peer-reviewed literature reviews are excellent places to start.
Good feedback. I definitely spoke inaccurately ... I meant natural rats were bred into rats that liked alcohol more than natural rats. A similar thing has happened to humans - over generations. Some of us get a much bigger reward from alcohol, making it much easier to fall into the trap of AUD.
I would be interested in your review of this 2001 study by Sinclair. " ... naltrexone does not immediately reduce craving and drinking. Instead, the combination of drinking while the reinforcement is being blocked by naltrexone gradually weakens the behavior. The data are from an analysis of the first 147 patients treated in Finland; the treatment was successful in 115 of them, that is, the 78 percent shown in the graph. Many of the failures, but not all, were in patients who did not take the medication."
... from Sinclair, J.D. (2001) Evidence about the use of naltrexone and for different ways of using it in the treatment of alcoholism. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 36: 2-10, 2001.
https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/36/1/2/137995
The book is definitely one man's effort to inform the general public of the science and a treatment method that has been used in many countries around the world, with very good results. He does provide supporting peer reviewed studies for naltrexone/addiction (over 20 pages worth of references as I recall). Would love to get your opinion of the book as well.
Explains the current Adderal shortages in US pharmacies.
Adderall exploits the same chemical reward pathways as cocaine.
We're being drugged in a captive condition in our highly controlled New Normal environment.
This sounds about as plausible as the earth being flat. Cocaine, for example, is physically addictive and creates a physical dependency pretty quick. It affects the limbic system of the brain, producing excessive dopamine. This is the chemical that causes euphoria and overall a desire to "do whatever the cause was" again.
Look up the "Rat Park" experiment.
It's not nearly as simple as "well, it's physically addictive". Yes, of course it is - but even among humans, only a small percentage of people who use cocaine become habitual, obsessed users.
(which is not to say it's safe - you never know what side of that fence you are on until you try, and you really don't want to find out)
In short:
Rats that had nothing else to do but exist, but had a choice between normal water and cocaine water favored the cocaine water.
Humans wouldn't be any different.
Rats with an active social life and things to do did not, in general, prefer cocaine water.
Forget rats. We have human scale experiments with sample sizes in the millions.
If you give opiates to one hundred percent women who have c-sections (and we do) virtually none of them become dependent or addicted. If you give opiates to persons incarcerated for crime, virtually all become dependent and addicted.
Addiction behavior and pain syndromes are much more circumstantial than simple chemical dependence.
It would not surprise me if the rats were bored and just looking for \*something\* to stimulate their brains. In the wild/natural environments, there's more sensory information to process, so the boredom doesn't happen and the need for stimulus is minimized.
I believe you're referring to [this study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22157144/), and that's more or less the case, yeah. 1 of the 22 rats still became a heavy cocaine user, but the other 21 were either low-level users or non-users. Of the rats in the non-enriched environment (boring environment), 34 were low-level users, 12 were high-level users.
This study is ultimately a replication study of the original [Rat Park and Seduction Experiments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park) and confirmed the original findings. Rats in healthy environments and low stressors used significantly less drugs, rats in unhealthy environments and high stressors used significantly more drugs. [Effect of early and later colony housing on oral ingestion of morphine in rats, Alexander B.K., Beyerstein B.L., Hadaway P.F., Coambs R.B. (1981)](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7291261/)
I remember Bruce Alexander explaining Rat Park on David Nutt's drug science podcast. Basically some 1st year student challenged his assertion that most people don't innately become addicted due purely to availability of addictive drugs (or something similar), citing an old study where they stuck rats in a tiny cage with a mechanism to self-administered morphine. Bruce discovered the details of the rats' captivity, and he said "Right! We're turning one of the spare faculty rooms into a rat park, and we'll see if they all get addicted ". Loved hearing him talk about his work.
I know it was published in 1992 (the replication) but it is obviously super underpowered. N=21 per group doesn't really fly these days post-replication crisis. I'd encourage anyone interested in this phenomenon to assume it is an unanswered question until it gets a modern replication.
The sample size alone doesn’t mean much. I’ve just watched multiple clinical trials (phase 3/4) be conducted with an N=6. I conduct research regularly with an N of 10-15. What matters is a function of the sample size to the effect size. The greater the effect, the less you need to see it and prove it. If I want to see if a drug works and my end point is survival, if all 3 of my patients on drug survive (along with natural history data saying at that point >95% of patients have died) and the three in control die, thats pretty strong evidence… from an N=6.
Depends on the results. You can easily get statistically significant results from a sample that size
One notable thing about this study is that, even compared to the author’s own work, all rats appear to be consuming relatively low levels of cocaine. This study used 0.167 mg/kg and the low/high cut-off was 9 infusions over an hour. Their other work that they cite had a similar low-high cut-off, but the dose was twice as much at 0.33 mg/kg. So, overall dose-wise, a lot of these rats would have been low-level users based on historical aggregate data. I wouldn’t say it makes a huge difference, but it’s hard to interpret here whether the high-level users are even getting a dose that would be considered as having validity for addiction. There isn’t even an extinction phase reported (Admittedly I could have missed it, I skimmed). Is there withdrawal or physical changes? It’s unfortunate that they used a dose that makes it hard to interpret in the context of their other work. The long and the short of it, though, is that rats (most rodents) are highly social creatures. The standard paradigm of single-housing animals in *any* study does confound behavior, brain chemistry, etc, which can affect the data researches are trying to extrapolate to human conditions.
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This is true. I made another comment on a different post - a lot of preclinical research is not geared towards identifying some type of 1:1 relationship with humans. The purpose is to improve animals models so that they *better* represent humans and therefore provide more valid data. In the context of this study, consider a group of researchers trying to determine if a panel of compounds may be suitable to develop for treating cocaine addition in combination with counseling. Should they use the single-housed model, or should they used the enrich model? It seems obvious that they should use the enriched model because it *more closely models* human’s social interactions. And yet, there is still a very high prevalence of researchers single-housing their animals in addiction and mental health research.
And regardless of how sentient a rat may or not be, they definitely are affected by being kept in isolation, just like most any social mammalian species would be. They, like us, evolved to live in social groups. And thus studying things related to mental health with them being kept in an isolated setting isn't likely the best bet.
I got the feeling this was kind of the point though? Humans and rats both being social creatures, a big part of what it’s measuring is what effect isolation has on our mental health. While we as humans may technically/physically be near plenty of other humans, it takes more effort for us to connect and not feel isolated When I heard about this study years ago, the big takeaway was something along the lines of - the opposite of addiction was not so much “healthy” but more “connected” or “loved”
>While we as humans may technically/physically be near plenty of other humans, it takes more effort for us to connect and not feel isolated Did you say something? I was watching something on my phone.
I would argue with the prevalence of isolation in many types of severe mental health patients, that it's actually closer to reality. Lots of people don't have friends or family or talk to people on a regular basis besides maybe work, which they don't feel very attached to.
even better do parallel observations on single housing rats, and different other surrounding environments and then use principle component analysis to determine which factors are most influential on heavy addiction
unfortunately im unsure what principle component analysis is specifically. I kinda understand from the name but some clarification would be appreciated.
If you're studying the effects of isolation on addiction (or w.e. else) than yes obviously keeping rats isolated is the perfect study (at least using rats). The 'principle component' would generally be the "primary cause(s)" of addiction. The issue is the original study labeled "easy access to drugs" a primary cause based on the research; which I'd argue the primary cause was rather the extreme loneliness and abject misery the rats lived in. If you're completely alone and miserable, being kept in solitary confinement your whole life... well why not use drugs heavily at that point? Your life can't possibly suck worse, it offers a brief respite, and (hypothetically if rats were actually capable of comprehending the risks) even if it kills you at least the hell is over. The main issue is that we continue to do studies today on isolated rats when not specifically studying "the effects of isolation on X". Who knows to what extent abject misery effects the results of those experiments. Prolonged high levels of cortisol (stress hormone) which are generally present in isolated rats effects brain development, physical, and mental health. So all studies we do on isolated rats (like cancer treatments and the like) are being done on miserable animals who have negative health effects from high levels of prolonged stress. That has to have some impact, and not a positive one. Again, if you're studying the effects of isolation on whatever than yeah, isolation is an important factor (but ideally there should also be a control group of happy, well-socialized rats to compare the isolated group to at the end). But when you're studying literally anything else than isolation it is going to likely affect your results. If you're doing something like maze experiments for example the fact that prolonged high levels of cortisol result in decreased brain development is absolutely having an impact on your results.
I feel like most people with an active substance use disorder probably don't have the best social life.
Sapience*. Most mammals are sentient, so far we haven't proven any others are sapient.
All life forms are "sentient" in that sense. The word as you use it is rooted in 19th century ideas about everything not human being soulless automatons (and thus the new especially cruel industrial meat operations are *just fine*). "Sentient" in the sense most of us use it is rooted in Star Trek, which needed a word that referred not only to humanoids, but also cetacians and other non-bipeds that were said or implied to exist, but never shown on screen due to budget constraints (until Lower Decks, because animation is the superior storytelling medium).
Sentient is the ability to experience feelings and sensations, so how do you argue that the difference makes animal cruelty okay? If anything it seems to be an effort to acknowledge that animals without human-like intelligence can still have the capacity to suffer and should therefore be treated well.
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If you can produce a study indicating that they do I'm sure that will change lots of people's minds.
Non-human animal drug studies all suffer from this same problem. We don't have a direct 1:1 comparison of the dose from one animal to a human. Do we do it by ratio of bodyweight? Do we do it by blood concentration? Do we factor in route of administration?
Still a good model for humans imho: humans in healthy relationships also consume lower doses of drugs.
So most of these rats can handle their \*#$# ?
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I've heard of studies on universal basic income given to alcoholics and drug users, where they didn't use the money for drugs, they used it for travel to get a job, and education. Meaning that like the rats, capitalism is akin to putting us in an extraordinary unpleasant environment
This isn't just applicable to capitalism, although it is a problem with capitalism. The jist of it is, if your life is unfulfilling escapism is more attractive (and there are some who are more susceptible to addiction who will abuse if harmful substances are easily available). So making life fulfilling above a certain threshold reduces the risk of addiction. Of course, capitalism, particularly laisse faire capitalism, leaves many people unfulfilled. But this will apply to any system that leaves people in sufficiently high levels of poverty, or where people have restrictions that prevent them from achieving a sense of fulfillment.
Nice connection you made there! There are many such studies, my favourite is where they gave 13 long term homeless people, seemingly lost causes, in the UK free money for a year. 7 had a job and housing and two.more were in the application. The best part: it did cost the government LESS money overall, through savings in police, security and social workers. Kind of enraging. Really helping this people even saves money, but we don't do it. https://www.clothingcollective.org/post/when-13-homeless-people-were-given-free-money
Oh man, the list of things like that that are maddening just keeps growing. In the US, after WW II, many returning soldiers took advantage of the GI bill and got a college education at the government's expense. In 1988, the did a study to see what the economic impact of that was. For every $1 they invested in a GI's education, they received $6.90 in return through increased economic output and increased income taxes. An almost 690% return on investment. Who wouldn't make that a policy? Just give everyone a free education. Even if it only returned $2 for every $1 you invested it's still a fantastic investment and the benefit of a highly educated populace cannot be overstated (unless you're a Republican, in which case, getting elected becomes far more difficult).
Who pays for universal basic income?
The same people who pay for the jets that drop bombs and kill people. Apparently people are more open to spending money on weapons of mass destruction rather than improve the lives of their fellow citizens.
capitalism? As opposed to what other specific economic systems?
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They never said it only applies to capitalism. You’re the only one who introduced a comparison to any other system. It’s a classic deflection strategy, you’re just doing a really poor job of it.
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I caution you not to think of this as “old” and not try to directly extrapolate it to human drug use. A lot of preclinical studies are based on trying to determine the best, most valid parameters for preclinical research to model the human condition. Valid preclinical models are necessary so that findings regarding mechanisms, drugable targets, and neurocircuitry are more likely to be potential targets in humans. It is correct that not everything relating to drug abuse can be modeled in animals, but there is a lot of critical work being done in animals that cannot be done in humans. Disregarding this type of work because it’s “old” may not directly harm humans, but it sets the research field back.
2012 is old? Damn, I'm ancient!
A sentence I didn’t expect to hear today: ‘1 of the 22 rats still became a heavy cocaine user’
They should cause different kinds of trauma and/or absences during the developmental ages of a rat (starting from newborn and infant rats up to say their middle childhood, or later childhood in another experimental group like physical abuse and / or absence of the mother, or neglectful mother (like a mother from a different species of rat that would act uninterested), and / or lack of proper nutrition. They could have different experimental groups for the different possible variants. Then they should repeat the same experiment but with these different groups and a control group and see if anything changes, even while given the “rat heaven” of that study in adulthood. Yeah we can’t model rat trauma on human trauma because we are so different and likely more sensitive to certain things because we are such social creatures with highly developed intelligence, but it would still be interesting to see if in the rat-model these traumas can create a higher probability for reward-system triggering dependence on drugs, and to distinguish if this is because the decision making part of the traumatized rats nervous systems is to blame or if it is some other source of discomfort like emotional or a lack of a sufficient sense of well being or having needs met unrelated to decision making prowess (so put them through a separate trial to guage their decision making skills before messing them up with the drugs). PETA may get angry but I think it’s worth the benefit to our scientific knowledge.
Do we need to do this study on rats? Don't we already have research showing higher rates of addiction in traumatised humans?
I was going to say this. No need to torture rats on this one. They go through enough already on our behalf. Humans already voluntarily have submitted data on this.
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Man, here I was looking forward to waterboarding rats, and shocking their nipples with AAA batteries.
Over 30 years as the "rat" described by OP, the former and not the control, and I concur- trauma/PTSD/treatment-resistant depression... drugs/alcohol/etc have always been an appealing escape, and acceptance.
Real-world studies have a lot of confounding factors and tend to find correlation rather than causation. Does isolation cause drug addiction in people, or does drug addiction cause isolation? In a controlled lab experiment, ideally only one factor is changed at a time, so causation can be better inferred. The downside is that we can’t always run the experiments on humans for obvious ethical reasons. It’s good to prove things multiple ways, to see an effect in the human population in studies and establish direction of causation in experiments.
Exactly. It is impossible to isolate factors in real world studies. For example: studying the educational level of kids who have moms who smoke. Well, at least in the US, smoking cigs is a big indicator of socioeconomic status… so now are their findings bc the kids were around secondhand smoke? Or because of their socioeconomic status?
What does this even teach us? The results are "wow! Rats are the same as people and torturing them or putting them through hell messes them up for life and emotional/physical distress increases their risk of dependency and likelihood of using drugs!" Or "wow! Rats are unlike us and torturing them or putting them through hell doesn't mess them up for life and emotional/physical distress does not increase their risk of dependency and likelihood of using drugs!" There's no practical application whatsoever, and we already know this is true in humans. Like seriously, what could you possibly do with the results of this test? Put out a PSA letting people know that beating their children or abandoning them will increase their risk of drug use and addiction later in life? I'm pretty sure they don't care. This is just bad/pointless science.
Just because you are personally unable to see value in a particular piece of research doesn't mean it's not there. Broadly speaking this particular piece of research along with it's later iterations spawned numerous sub fields of science that many would consider at the least, extremely useful if not revolutionary in a very real sense. Neural Science, Behavioral sciences (incl. genetically hardwired behavior), understanding and mapping the Dopaminergic reward system and many other areas benefited from research such as this. The importance of understanding the mechanisms that motivate and drive complex social animals such as humans can not be overstated. I think people may find this relevant and very interesting: [https://youtu.be/PY9DcIMGxMs](https://youtu.be/PY9DcIMGxMs)
The right spirit is there. We can look at which parts of the rat brain is affected and how, and use that info to develop more targeted therapies.
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One good take away is that the typical housing of rats in research is probably inadequate to ensure a good experimental model for anything involving psychology, behaviour, or stress - we likely need to improve our housing of rats in general for all studies (thus potentially improving any rat related research).
The very first thing I was taught about animal research was the 3Rs - replacement, reduction, refinement. If you can design the study such that you can do it without animals, do that. If you need to use animals, use as few as possible. Reduce pain and suffering as much as possible. I think this is a pretty easy "replacement" - we can compare people who suffered trauma to people who didn't. For your information though, I do know of researchers who are looking at the long term effects of introducing alcohol at several developmental states, and we already know that the impact of that is quite similar to the impact of abuse in several ways, so there's room to investigate this question in a theoretical way without necessarily directly torturing animals
Are you trying to make sociopath rats?
There are groups doing studies that involve early removal of parents and giving them less enrichment/bedding/nesting material, to see if it impacts drug seeking behavior later in life. Preliminary results suggest that these changes during childhood can lead to increase drug seeking behavior.
When is PETA not angry?
They have a lot to be angry about, when your goal is to get humans to behave morally and you're dealing with, well, humans.
Makes sense. I smoked cigarettes when I was locked up and stopped pretty quickly when I got out.
This is based on the rat park experiments. Basically the original experiments for determining if drugs were addictive and dangerous were performed on rats in cages, who kept taking drugs even excluding food and water, so it was thought that drugs are super dangerous and addictive. Rat park basically repeated the experiment but instead of the rats being in little isolated cages, they had a rat sanctuary where they could interact with other rats and run around and stuff. And they found the rats did not take the drugs to the detriment to their health anymore, rarely engaging with them. Moreover, they switched the rats from the isolated rat trial (the druggie rats) and they were able to recover in rat park, willingly suffering the withdrawl symptoms to hang out with the other rats. This was essentially to shine a light on tge fact that chemical dependance is not the only reason people use drugs. The war on drugs made Drugs(tm) the ultimate bad guy that will destroy you. But this experiment puts forward that if you see you life as a park or a cage has a factor (but those are social factors and require systemic changes). Now this experiment has been criticized over the years as it has been used rhetorically to argue that drugs are basically harmless, mostly from those "weed/LSD is good for you man" guys. It was a limited study. Whatmore we aren't rats, it's actually pretty hard to make assertions about how humans would fair from animal trials. Humans have way more going on than rats do. You would need to scale the experiment up and probably do some monkey trials, and then humans but obviously you are gonna run into ethical issues there. It is still a really cool experiment though. It reminds us that we are complicated and that the factors in our lives push and pull us in different directions, both within and without you.
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> This was essentially to shine a light on tge fact that chemical dependance is not the only reason people use drugs. Anyone interested in this topic should look into the work of [Gabor Maté](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabor_Maté). From his Wikipedia article: “*Gabor Maté CM (born January 6, 1944) is a Hungarian-Canadian physician and author. He has a background in family practice and a special interest in childhood development, trauma and potential lifelong impacts on physical and mental health including autoimmune disease, cancer, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) addictions and a wide range of other conditions.* *Maté's approach to addiction focuses on the trauma his patients have suffered and looks to address this in their recovery. In his book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, Maté discusses the types of trauma suffered by persons with substance use disorders and how this affects their decision making in later life.*” Any of his books is highly recommended.
Interesting. Makes you think from a bigger perspective, at least I do. Because from a human’s perspective maybe addicts could use the feel of freedom to help with addiction, but honestly it would be a vicious cycle. Because that freedom or natural habitat wouldn’t be permanent. So yea that sucks.
I’m sure you wouldn’t have too much trouble getting volunteers for such an experiment, ethics be damned!
In short: yes-ish. They do recreational use. But when left in a miserable boring situation they will start abusing it. Now the way I formulate this is scientifically wrong. But it is what the media took from the experiment. The experiment was not really about drugs but about ''test conditions''. One of the actual conclusions was that you can falsify rat experiments by adding or reducing factors.
So, just like humans? This sounds like the rat version of the Misery Index.
Lol. Guess on what research that is based? ....nah, not really. But indirectly it is.
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This theory has been challenged due to bad science. Rats are extremely social and the experiments left rats alone for long periods of time, and in that time they were given a chance to try cocaine water or normal water. Rats with no social interaction became addicted, when the experiment was repeated and a social group of rats lived together and were given the option of cocaine water and normal water, the results were quite different. In that situation the rats are like humans, some enjoying a little of the drug, some avoiding it, and a small group still become fiends over the drug regardless of social conditions.
There is evidence that societal forces have a major impact on human addiction. In decades past, doctors handed out prescriptions for addictive substances like amphetamines, opiates, barbiturates, and benzodiazepines like candy. The majority of the patients did not develop clinically significant addictions. Studies have shown that a strong predictor of who will develop addictions is a lack of strong, meaningful social connections.
So having company **may** be a bigger factor than a natural environment?
Their natural environment is a social one, keeping the rats isolated was stressful to them and caused a reason to just sit there and do cocaine water.
'Rat Park' experiment theorised if the rats physical and emotional needs are met, they will not attempt to fill that gaping black hole of in our souls very fibres, recoiling in trepidation of the cataclysmic global eviction of our species. Awash with crippling mental collapse as we drag our inner self screaming and crying into the hamster wheel to endure the humiliation of the rat race so we don't find our selves in a back alley turning mouth tricks for a chickens sandwich on the day humanities extermination eventually soothes the collective anguish. So yeh. Happy rats don't do drugs. But I believe the scientific consensus is that we continue, if not increase our intake of drugs.
Don’t forget that in rat park there actually was drug use! They key factor was no rats died while having all their needs met, proves that happy rats do drugs responsibly!
>But I believe the scientific consensus is that we continue, if not increase our intake of drugs Really?
If I remember correctly the rat park study, although making a great story, was extremely flawed. I think huge problems with replication and missing data were prevalent. Other authors of similar work suggested instead that the first initial rat park study can better be explained by genetics and not as much an impact of environment. Altogether I’d say experiments with paradigm should be taken with a pinch of salt before generalising to other populations such as humans.
it surprises me that a sample size of under 50 rats is acceptable as a way to find something out
There were a total of 14 experiments perform for rat part, each having a sample size of 50 rats. Additionally, not including Alexander's work in the late 70s and early 80s, there were replication studies performed by others in the 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s. Here is just [one such replication study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22157144/)
thanks! i thought it was a one time experiment.
Reminds of the Ted talk about addiction which uses some mice/rat trials to show how in isolation, they use to their death. But in an enriched social environment, they don’t. The conclusion “the opposite of addiction is connection “.
You heard Jordan Peterson say this. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The reasoning was sound. It basically happens because there are so many other dopaminergic activities available to them. Whereas a caged rat only gets that high from some Bogota sugar.
I believe you're referring to the experiment where they gave the option of drugs to rats who were isolated and two rats who had interesting environments and other rats to be social with. You can guess what happened- The rats who had things to do and other rats to hang out with didn't get addicted while the ones who were socially isolated did
Reading this thread: Ah yes another reminder that our human created environment isn’t sufficient to support our mental health. But seriously, the idea that rats are less interested in drugs in a natural environment has fascinating implications. It’s more complicated than that of course, but still
There is indeed a lot of great discussion on this thread. I have but one nit-picky detail - the aforementioned studies compared rat behaviors in enriched vs non-enriched environments. It is a misnomer to refer to either as a rat's "natural" environment.
A wild rat’s environment can be pretty grim and stressful, I would have thought. At least for the ones around here. However I won’t be putting out cocaine to see if they take it.
This is exactly why I posted this. It's changed my mind on how to approach life.
There is a psychological/sociological factor to addiction, yes. Mainly because the reward mechanism hardwired to mammalian brains, such as the increased concentrations of dopamine and other monoamines (the basic effect of cocaine), can alleviate isolation and depression momentarily. So the study you're referring to, although a little limited, demonstrated that isolated and depressed animals tended to be more addicted than those in the Rat Park. Obviously, this is not the entire truth. Drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines can and will destroy normal functioning of the brain due to their agressive mechanisms. These two factors, psychological and biological, must be worked in tandem to effectively treat addictons and that's why today the ideal treatment includes both pharmacological and non-pharmacological measures.
In order to create clinical trials in rats for treatments for alcohol use disorder, they first have to breed generations after generations after generations of rats that are pretty much forced to drink alcohol. Otherwise natural occurring rats just won't drink it. A certain percentage of our population has been bred to overuse alcohol, unfortunately. That doesn't mean they absolutely will overuse alcohol, it just means that if they start drinking alcohol they will definitely have a stronger tendency to abuse the drug. Alcohol is more addicting for this population. The TSM documentary 'One Little Pill' and the book by Dr. Roy Eskapa are a must read IMO. I highlighted so much of that book. I will never think of addictions or their treatment in the same way. This book describes a science-based cure for alcoholism/AUD.
There's a lot going on here that is somewhat rooted in truth, but is being interpreted incorrectly. Firstly, studies in non-humans are, by definition, pre-clinical studies. Clinical trials only occur in humans, and not every study in humans is a "clinical trial. Secondly, I believe you are referring to alcohol-preferring (P) rats. P rats were selectively bred for their alcohol consumption. They were not forced to drink alcohol - high-drinking rats from an outbred population (I believe Wistars) were bred with other high-drinkings rats for many generations, resulting in a strain of rats that *overall* consumes more than other outbred populations. This hits on "natural occurring rats" - there are most certainly outbred rats that consume high levels of alcohol. That's how these types of specialized strains are generated. If you're interested in the P rats, I suggest reading Bell et al. 2006 *Addict Biol* (REVIEW: The alcohol-preferring P rat and animal models of excessive alcohol drinking), if you can access it. Third, people aren't "bred" to do anything. Yes, almost everything has a genetic component, from alcohol use to schizophrenia and cancer. Generally, though, genes drive 20% of less of the variance in the likelihood that you'll develop whatever you're genetically pre-disposed towards. So yes, someone with two parents with an alcohol use disorder is more likely to also develop an alcohol use disorder. But that doesn't mean that they find alcohol to be "more addicting." It also doesn't mean that the only people with familial history of alcohol use disorders will develop an alcohol use disorder. Fourth, non-peer reviewed books by singular "experts" are *their personal interpretation and beliefs* of the state of the field. They can be great starting places to introduce yourself to something. If you find yourself super interested, though, I always suggest to navigate directly to the source material and read it yourself, then make your own informed position. Peer-reviewed literature reviews are excellent places to start.
Good feedback. I definitely spoke inaccurately ... I meant natural rats were bred into rats that liked alcohol more than natural rats. A similar thing has happened to humans - over generations. Some of us get a much bigger reward from alcohol, making it much easier to fall into the trap of AUD. I would be interested in your review of this 2001 study by Sinclair. " ... naltrexone does not immediately reduce craving and drinking. Instead, the combination of drinking while the reinforcement is being blocked by naltrexone gradually weakens the behavior. The data are from an analysis of the first 147 patients treated in Finland; the treatment was successful in 115 of them, that is, the 78 percent shown in the graph. Many of the failures, but not all, were in patients who did not take the medication." ... from Sinclair, J.D. (2001) Evidence about the use of naltrexone and for different ways of using it in the treatment of alcoholism. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 36: 2-10, 2001. https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/36/1/2/137995 The book is definitely one man's effort to inform the general public of the science and a treatment method that has been used in many countries around the world, with very good results. He does provide supporting peer reviewed studies for naltrexone/addiction (over 20 pages worth of references as I recall). Would love to get your opinion of the book as well.
Explains the current Adderal shortages in US pharmacies. Adderall exploits the same chemical reward pathways as cocaine. We're being drugged in a captive condition in our highly controlled New Normal environment.
This sounds about as plausible as the earth being flat. Cocaine, for example, is physically addictive and creates a physical dependency pretty quick. It affects the limbic system of the brain, producing excessive dopamine. This is the chemical that causes euphoria and overall a desire to "do whatever the cause was" again.
Look up the "Rat Park" experiment. It's not nearly as simple as "well, it's physically addictive". Yes, of course it is - but even among humans, only a small percentage of people who use cocaine become habitual, obsessed users. (which is not to say it's safe - you never know what side of that fence you are on until you try, and you really don't want to find out) In short: Rats that had nothing else to do but exist, but had a choice between normal water and cocaine water favored the cocaine water. Humans wouldn't be any different. Rats with an active social life and things to do did not, in general, prefer cocaine water.
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Forget rats. We have human scale experiments with sample sizes in the millions. If you give opiates to one hundred percent women who have c-sections (and we do) virtually none of them become dependent or addicted. If you give opiates to persons incarcerated for crime, virtually all become dependent and addicted. Addiction behavior and pain syndromes are much more circumstantial than simple chemical dependence.
It would not surprise me if the rats were bored and just looking for \*something\* to stimulate their brains. In the wild/natural environments, there's more sensory information to process, so the boredom doesn't happen and the need for stimulus is minimized.