A method has been developed that per-mits monkeys to
self-administer drug so-lutions, at will, through indwelling
intra-venous catheters. Monkeys developedpsychological dependence
on morphine,codeine, cocaine, d-amphetamine, pen-tobarbital,
ethanol, and caffeine. [TheSCI indicates that this paper has
beencited in over 425 publications.]
Addiction in the Monkey
Gerald Deneau1512 Edgewood PlaceClinton, MS 39056
October 24, 1989Studies of drug abuse in the monkey
were begun by M.H. Seevers and Tatumat the Universities of
Chicago and Wis-consin in the 19305.1 They were primar-ily
interested in the physiological phe-nomena of tolerance and
physical depen-dence. At the same time, the National Re-search
Council sponsored a collaborativeeffort to find a nonaddicting
morphinederivative. These latter studies were con-ducted at the
Universities of Virginia andMichigan and at the United States
Pub-lic Health Service Hospital inLexington,Kentucky. Both efforts
were largely cur-tailed duringWorld War II, butafter thewar, with
the advent of methadone andmeperidine, industrial laboratories
beganto produce many derivatives of thesesynthetics in the hope of
finding a saferanalgesic. Seevers, by then at Michigan,began to
refine techniques in the mon-key to determine if that speciescould
bereliably used for preclinical studies of ad-dictiveness to
analgesics. The rhesus
monkey did prove to be suitable forstudies of physical
dependence to mor-phine-like analgesics. The question thenarose as
to whether the monkey wouldbe useful for studying
thepsychologicaldependence capacity (reinforcing prop-erty) of all
classes of drugs of abuse.
With thesupport of the Psychopharma-cology Service Center,
studies were be-gun to see if the monkey would sponta-neously abuse
the same drugs that peopleabuse. Weekss procedure of
indwellingcatheterization for cardiovascular studieswas adapted to
the monkey. Fortunately,we had skilled shop people who helpedus
develop harnesses and pumps, and T.Yanagita, a postdoctoral fellow
with elec-tronic talents, developed the control cir-cuitry.
We studied the spontaneous drug-seek-ing behavior of naive
monkeys with eachof the major classes of addicting drugs.With the
exception of thehallucinogens,which did not appear to be
reinforcing,chronic morphinism, cocainism, alcohol-ism, and so on,
in the monkey closely re-sembled thehuman condition. It was
ap-parent that the reinforcing properties ofaddicting drugs could
be studied in lab-oratory animal procedures. Others havesince
modified these procedures to thepoint that reinforcing capacity can
be de-termined in a single day.2
It seemed that an endless series ofminor technical problems had
to be en-dured and resolved, but the excitementgenerated by the
data produced an in-comparable enthusiasm in each of usconnected
with the study.
[Editors note: R.R. Griffiths and P.P.Woodson have recently
reviewed3 hu-man and laboratory animal studies of
caf-feine-dependence, including the Classicpaper.J
CC/NUMBER 7This Weeks Citation Classic FEBRUARY 12,1990
Deneau G, Yanagita T & Seevers M H. Self-administration of
psychoactive substancesby the monkey: a measure of psychological
dependence. Psychopharmacologia16:30-48, 1969.[Department of
Pharmacology. University of Michigan Medical School. Ann Arbor,
Ml]
16
- Seevers M H. Animal experimentation in studying addiction to
the newer synthetic analgesics. Ann. NY Anad. Sci.51:98-107, 1948.
cited s times.)
2. Woods J H. Narcotic reinforced responding: a rapid evaluation
procedure. Drug Alcohol Dependence 8:223-30. 1980.(cited 5
limes.)3. GrilTiths R R & Woodson P P. Caffeine physical
dependencea review of human and laboratory animal studies.
Psychopharmacology 94:437-SI. 1988.
//Or~ 1L~1990 by SI CURRENT CONTENTS
