Up: [[Place]] Related: [[Compulsion]] Created: 2022-12-05 A number of soldiers who returned from the Vietnam War were addicted to heroin or morphine and yet, once home, many were able to stop using these substances. Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander and colleagues (1980) wanted to know why some veterans were able to stop taking the drugs, since numerous studies had recently proven that both heroin and morphine were highly addictive to rats — animals with a nervous system similar to our own. When reviewing the scientific studies, Alexander realized that all of the lab rats had something in common other than drug addiction — they all lived in cages. Knowing that humans aren’t terribly fond of life behind bars, Alexander wondered if the same might be true of rats. Perhaps environment had an impact on addiction. To test his hypothesis, [Alexander constructed a rat park](https://www.brucekalexander.com/pdf/Rat%20Park%201981%20PB&B.pdf) — a rat’s version of the perfect environment. Some lucky rats got to live in the rat park, while a control group stayed in cages. Rats in both conditions were provided with two bottles of water — one untreated; the other laced with sugar (a favourite of rats and humans) and morphine. Can you predict the results? The rats in the cages chose the water with morphine and quickly became addicted. The rats in the rat park overwhelmingly chose the plain water. Under some conditions, the caged rates consumed 20 times as much morphine as the rats in the rat park. Alexander upped the ante by further sweetening the morphine-laced water. The rats in the rat park rejected it. He then put a few drops of Naloxone into the morphine water — Naloxone counteracts the intoxicating effects of a drug. The rats in the rat park drank a little bit, but quickly returned to the plain water. For the final step in confirming his hypothesis that environment matters, Alexander took the caged rats and put them in a rat park. They immediately cut back on the amount of treated morphine water they were drinking, even though that meant they experienced the horrible symptoms of withdrawal. > [!User] Me, *Tuned Out: Engaging 21st Century Learners*, pp.158-159