Ricerc@Sapienza

The Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale (OCDS) was developed to reflect obsessionality and compulsivity related to craving and drinking behaviour for revealing in the long-term drop-out, abstinence and relapse. This study evaluates the early OCDS predictive value in drop-out, abstinence and relapse of patients suffering from Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD) for discovering an OCDS total score cut-off capable of disclosing patients most at-risk of relapse during the beginning of the therapeutic intervention in the Day-Hospital period.

We recently introduced an animal model to study incubation of drug craving after prolonged voluntary abstinence, mimicking the human condition of relapse after successful contingency management treatment. Here we studied the role of the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in this model. We trained rats to self-administer a palatable solution (sucrose 1% + maltodextrin 1%, 6 h/day, 6 days) and methamphetamine (6 h/day, 12 days).