Intravenous self-administration techniques in monkeys.

Drug self-administration is a procedure in which a subject performs a response, called an operant, that results in the delivery of a drug injection. This procedure is viewed as a relevant model for the study of human drug-taking behavior. Drug self-administration in primates has several characteristics that resemble drug-taking behavior in humans, and drugs that are commonly abused by humans also typically maintain self-administration behavior in monkeys. Drug self-administration procedures allow for the study of a variety of drug properties. For instance, they are used to investigate the abuse potential of new compounds and to study the effects of candidate medications for the treatment of drug addiction. These procedures also can be used to study the process of drug reinforcement. This unit describes intravenous drug self-administration in large primates, such as rhesus macaques, and smaller primates, such as squirrel monkeys.