Chronic food restriction augments the reinstatement of extinguished heroin-seeking behavior in rats.

Currently, there are no existing procedures that model in animals the situation where exposure to prolonged mild food restriction results in relapse to drug abuse. Here, reinstatement of extinguished heroin-seeking behavior was assessed in rats under extinction conditions. Ten, but not 7, days of food restriction (∼80% of sated body weight) induced reinstatement of heroin seeking, over and above the spontaneous recovery of the behavior. It is suggested that chronic, mild, food restriction following extinction of drug seeking behavior might serve as a useful model to study the increased risk for relapse to drug abuse due to dietary challenges.