Social reinforcement-based treatments are effective for many, but not all, people with addictions to drugs. We recently developed an operant rat model that mimics features of one such treatment, the community-reinforcement approach. In this model, rats uniformly choose social interaction over methamphetamine or heroin. Abstinence induced by social preference protects against the incubation of drug-seeking that would emerge during forced abstinence. Here, we determined whether these findings generalize to cocaine and whether delaying or increasing effort for social interaction could reveal possibly human-relevant individual differences in responsiveness. We trained male and female rats for social self-administration (6 days) and then for cocaine self-administration, initially for 2-h/day for 4 days, and then for 12-h/day continuously or intermittently for 8 days. We assessed relapse to cocaine seeking after 1 and 15 days. Between tests, the rats underwent either forced abstinence or social-choice-induced abstinence. After establishing stable social preference, we manipulated the delay for both rewards or for social reward alone, or the response requirements (effort) for social reward. Independent of cocaine-access conditions and sex, operant social interaction inhibited cocaine self-administration and prevented incubation of cocaine seeking. Preference for social access was decreased by the delay of both rewards or social reward alone, or by increased response requirements for social reward, with notable individual variability. This choice procedure can identify mechanisms of individual differences in an animal model of cocaine use and could thereby help screen medications for people who are relatively unresponsive to treatments based on rewarding social interaction.

基于社会强化的治疗对许多（但不是全部）毒瘾患者有效。我们最近开发了一种操作性大鼠模型，它模仿了一种此类治疗方法——社区强化方法的特征。在这个模型中，老鼠一致选择社交互动而不是甲基苯丙胺或海洛因。由社会偏好引起的禁欲可以防止强迫禁欲期间可能出现的寻求毒品的情况的发生。在这里，我们确定这些发现是否适用于可卡因，以及延迟或增加社交互动的努力是否可以揭示可能与人类相关的个体反应差异。我们训练雄性和雌性大鼠进行社会自我给药（6天），然后进行可卡因自我给药，最初每天2小时，持续4天，然后连续或间歇12小时/天，持续8天。我们评估了 1 天和 15 天后对可卡因的复发情况。在测试之间，老鼠经历了强制禁欲或社会选择诱导的禁欲。在建立稳定的社会偏好后，我们操纵奖励或单独的社会奖励的延迟，或社会奖励的响应要求（努力）。与可卡因获取条件和性别无关，操作性社交互动抑制可卡因自我施用并防止可卡因寻求的孵化。对社会参与的偏好因奖励或单独社会奖励的延迟而降低，或因社会奖励的反应要求增加而降低，具有显着的个体差异。这种选择程序可以识别可卡因使用动物模型中个体差异的机制，从而可以帮助筛选对基于奖励性社交互动的治疗相对无反应的人的药物。