A morphine-paired environment alters c-Fos expression in the forebrain of rats displaying conditioned place preference or aversion

The question of whether a common mechanism mediates both aversive and rewarding drug-paired cues is still unclear. In this study, we used a place preference conditioning paradigm to train rats to associate 1 chamber with morphine and the other chamber with saline. On the test day, rats were divided into those displaying conditioned place preferences (CPP) versus conditioned place aversion (CPA). After the test, all rats were killed and c-Fos immunocytochemistry was performed. For the control group, rats were treated with the same procedure except that the injections of morphine or saline had no association with the chambers. Compared with the control group, the CPP and CPA groups showed a significant increase of c-Fos expression in the dorsomedial striatum, central medial nucleus of the thalamus, and the basolateral amygdala. However, we saw no difference between CPP and CPA rats in any brain region examined. These results suggest that a morphine-paired environment can elicit neural activity in brain regions that are involved in emotional learning. Morphine-conditioned place preference and aversion may share a common neural circuitry elicited by a morphine-paired environment.