Disruption of conditioned drug memories

We first made a brief review on historical development of drug craving theories. A special emphasis was given on the proposal that conditioned drug memories can be a critical psychopathological basis to elicit compulsive drug taking, craving and subsequent relapse. We then discussed the different processes associated with drug learning and memory as well as recent findings pertaining to these processes, specifically using the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm as a model for assessing these conditioned drug memories. Over this decade, many factors have been identified to affect the acquisition, consolidation, expression and reconsolidation of such a drug-induced CPP memory in rodents. Since reactivation of the established drug-induced CPP memory and modification of the reactivated memory are two core components for developing potential treatments, a few theoretical and practical considerations in the CPP paradigm are provided and discussed accordingly.