White Matter Microstructural Alterations Induced by Chronic Cocaine Self-Administration: A Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study in the Rat

Alessandro Gozzi¹, Michela Tessari¹, Federica Agosta¹, Lisa Dacome¹, Mauro Corsi¹, Angelo Bifone¹

Cocaine abuse is often modelled in experimental paradigms where rats are trained to self-administer the drug. However, the exact degree to which these models replicate the neurofunctional and microstructural alterations observed in neuroimaging studies of cocaine-addicts remains unknown. Here we used Diffusion Tensor Imaging to investigate white matter integrity in a rodent model of long-term, long-access self-administration of cocaine. We found substantial microstructural alterations in the frontal corpus callosum, a hallmark of reduced white matter integrity consistently observed in cocaine abusers. These findings strengthen the construct-validity of this self-administration model to investigate the neuroanatomical substrates involved in the transition from occasional drug use to chronic drug consumption.