Methamphetamine and social rewards interact to produce enhanced conditioned place preference in male adolescent rats

Elucidating the influence of social context on drug reward is critical for understanding substance use disorders. Adolescents demonstrate enhanced sensitivity to drug and social rewards. However, the extent to which meth amphetamine interacts with social reward in adolescents has not been thoroughly examined. Therefore, the present study used the conditioned place preference (CPP) model to examine the relationship between meth amphetamine and social rewards in adolescent male rats. Sprague-Dawley rats (PND 30) were randomly assigned to one of the following four conditioning groups: saline alone (SA), methamphetamine alone (MA), saline with a social partner (SS) or methamphetamine with a social partner (MS). Testing occurred in a two-chamber biased apparatus across seven consecutive days using parameters presumed to be sub-threshold for establishing social- and methamphetamine-induced CPP. Similar to previous reports for nicotine and cocaine, the present results indicate that rats receiving methamphetamine with a social partner (i.e., MS) during conditioning demonstrated a significantly greater preference shift compared to all other groups. These findings further highlight the importance of social context in influencing the magnitude of drug reward during adolescence.