Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science, 2017, 7, 585-597 http://www.scirp.org/journal/jbbs ISSN Online: 2160-5874 ISSN Print: 2160-5866 DOI: 10.4236/jbbs.2017.712041 Nov. 22, 2017 585 Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science Drug Seeking Behavior of Amphetamine Addicted Sprague-Dawley Rats Is Eliminated after Nutritional Supplementation Annice Webber-Waugh 1 , Karen Thaxter Nesbeth 1 , Pauline Anderson-Johnson 2 , Ajibike Salako-Akande 3 , Helen Asemota 1,4 , Lauriann Young 1* 1 Department of Basic Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus, Kingston, Jamaica 2 UWI School of Nursing, Mona Campus, Kingston, Jamaica 3 Getwele Natureceuticals LLC, Halethorpe, MD, USA 4 The Biotechnology Centre, UWI, Kingston, Jamaica Abstract Aim: The effectiveness of nutritional supplementation on drug-seeking beha- vior of amphetamine-addicted rats during withdrawal was investigated using a biased conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Method: Twenty-four male Sprague-Dawley rats exhibiting baseline preference for the black cham- ber during a 20-minute pre-conditioning exploration of the CPP box com- pleted the study. On alternate days of an 8-day schedule, twelve rats (Group AMP) were randomly selected, given either amphetamine sulfate (5 mg/ml, i.p.) and confined to the white chamber; or vehicle (1 ml saline, i.p.) and con- fined to the black chamber. A significant increased percentage time spent and number of entries made by Group AMP to the drug-paired, white chamber on the test day confirmed amphetamine addiction. Group AMP subsequently re- ceived increasing doses of amphetamine over 6 days. Following acute drug withdrawal, their CPP performance was compared with that of vehicle treated rats (Group SAL). Groups AMP and SAL were equally divided and randomly assigned to animals fed chow reconstituted with the nutritional supplement (AMP-S and SAL-S) over 8 weeks or standard rat chow (AMP-N and SAL-N). CPP performances for all rats were determined blindly from video recordings following this period. Results: Nutritionally supplemented, amphetamine withdrawn rats (AMP-S) exhibited significantly decreased percentage entries and time spent in the white chamber (p < 0.05), indicating preference for the black chamber and diminished drug-seeking behavior. ANOVA revealed that after 8 weeks of dietary supplementation, AMP-S rats behaved like drug-naïve, control animals. Conclusion: Drug-seeking behavior by amphetamine-addic- How to cite this paper: Webber-Waugh, A., Thaxter Nesbeth, K., Anderson-Johnson, P., Salako-Akande, A., Asemota, H. and Young, L. (2017) Drug Seeking Behavior of Amphetamine Addicted Sprague-Dawley Rats Is Eliminated after Nutritional Sup- plementation. Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science, 7, 585-597. https://doi.org/10.4236/jbbs.2017.712041 Received: July 21, 2017 Accepted: November 19, 2017 Published: November 22, 2017 Copyright © 2017 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access