Figure 7.

Loss of CeA function. Optogenetic CeA inhibition does not alter choice, but pharmacological CeA inhibition abolishes cocaine pursuit and laser preference. A, Optogenetic CeA inhibition paired with earning one cocaine reward failed to alter nose poke preference, as CeA halorhodopsin rats (eNpHR; n = 7) chose equally between the laser + cocaine (solid orange lines with orange filled squares) and cocaine alone (solid gray line with gray filled squares). However, over the course of the 10 d, total cocaine intake graph on right shows that halorhodopsin rats (eNpHR; solid orange lines with open squares outlined in orange) self-administered less cocaine infusions compared with control inactive virus rats (control eYFP; n = 2; dashed gray lines with open diamonds outlined in gray). B, Muscimol/baclofen CeA inactivation. Rats receiving microinjections into CeA of muscimol/baclofen (muscimol + baclofen; n = 5; solid purple lines with filled purple circles) self-administered fewer infusions than rats receiving vehicle (vehicle; n = 4; solid gray lines with filled gray circles). C, CeA muscimol/baclofen prevents laser + cocaine preference. When CeA microinjections of muscimol/baclofen were administered for the first 4 d of training, cocaine responding was completely suppressed for both cocaine options in the 2-choice task. As soon as microinjections ceased (starting on days 5–6), CeA ChR2 rats (n = 4) exclusively chose the laser + cocaine option (solid blue lines with blue filled circles) over and above their cocaine alone option (solid black lines with black filled squares), as well as above the prior day when receiving muscimol/baclofen. Data are shown as mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01.