Center core
Addiction Biobank Core
Animal models are essential for understanding addiction because they allow controlled drug exposure, dose, timing, environment, and causal manipulation of genes, cells, and circuits. But multi-omic studies too often rely on passive or limited-access exposure, thin behavioral characterization, and small cohorts, and biological samples are rarely shared, limiting replication and translational impact. The Addiction Biobank Core removes those barriers.
What the biobank holds
The core provides reproducible biological samples from heterogeneous stock (HS) rats with a history of extended-access self-administration of cocaine, oxycodone, alcohol, and polydrug (cocaine+oxycodone) use. Over the past six years, the team built separate biobanks for these drugs, enabling 75 collaborations and distributing ~4,000 samples from a repository of more than 40,000.
Specimens include whole brain and more than 20 dissected brain regions, blood, urine, feces, and peripheral organs, systematically collected at key timepoints: before drug exposure, intoxication, acute withdrawal, and protracted abstinence. Animals are whole-genome sequenced and scored on the Addiction Index, so every sample is linked to its donor’s genetics and behavioral phenotype.
From behaviorally characterized animals to a national resource: sample types, timepoints, storage methods, applications, and the range of collaborative science the biobanks have already enabled. (Figure from the Addiction Biobank Core research strategy.)
Drug exposure and protocol timeline
All biobanks follow the same design. Each rat is characterized individually on several addiction-like behaviors, then euthanized at one of three timepoints. Drug-naive, age-matched controls come from the same cohorts. Cohorts are half male, half female, with one male and one female per HS breeder pair to maximize genetic diversity. Behavioral measures are converted to z-scores within sex and cohort and averaged into an Addiction Index, which ranks each animal from low to severe. Detailed procedures are available on protocols.io.
Cocaine and oxycodone: intravenous self-administration
Rats are implanted with a jugular catheter and press a lever to self-administer cocaine (0.5 mg/kg per infusion) or oxycodone (0.15 mg/kg per infusion). Testing takes place between 7 and 15 weeks of age.
- Baseline: behavioral measures and longitudinal samples before drug exposure.
- Short access: 2-hour sessions to acquire self-administration (10 sessions for cocaine, 4 for oxycodone).
- Long access: 14 sessions of 6 hours (cocaine) or 12 hours (oxycodone), five days per week, during which intake escalates.
- Behavioral characterization: motivation (progressive ratio) for both drugs. For cocaine, drug taking despite footshock (compulsive-like use) and irritability-like behavior in withdrawal. For oxycodone, pain sensitivity in withdrawal and tolerance to the analgesic effect of the drug.
Alcohol: oral self-administration and vapor-induced dependence
Rats press a lever for 10% alcohol or water in operant chambers. Dependence is then induced by chronic intermittent ethanol (CIE) vapor exposure, 14 hours on and 10 hours off each day, reaching blood alcohol levels of about 180 mg/dl.
- Baseline: pain sensitivity, anxiety-like behavior, and sensitivity to the sedative effect of alcohol, measured before any alcohol exposure.
- Non-dependent drinking: 14 alcohol-versus-water choice sessions of 30 minutes, including a progressive ratio test of motivation and drinking of alcohol made bitter with quinine.
- Dependent drinking: during CIE vapor exposure, 17 sessions run three times per week in acute withdrawal, repeating the motivation and quinine tests.
- Withdrawal measures: pain sensitivity, anxiety-like behavior, and tolerance to alcohol.
Sample collection timepoints
Longitudinal samples (blood, urine, and feces) are collected before drug exposure, after the initial phase, and in withdrawal after the escalated or dependent phase. Terminal samples are collected at one of three timepoints:
| Timepoint | Cocaine | Oxycodone | Alcohol |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intoxication | During the last session, after about 2 hours of access | During the last session, after about 2 hours of access | After 13 to 15 hours of vapor exposure |
| Acute withdrawal | 18 hours after the last session | 12 hours after the last session | 7 to 10 hours after vapor exposure |
| Protracted abstinence | 4 to 5 weeks after the last session | 4 to 5 weeks after the last session | 4 weeks after vapor exposure, with no further alcohol |
Tissues are snap-frozen or perfusion-fixed with paraformaldehyde to support genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, neuroanatomy, and other approaches.
What the P50 adds
- Unified repositories under standardized operating procedures, expanded with polysubstance self-administration cohorts and cohorts from the center’s research projects.
- The first national polydrug biobank, systematically incorporating stimulant–opioid co-use paradigms that model real-world polysubstance exposure.
- The One-Individual Multiscale Atlas: tissues from the same animal used across all three research projects, enabling brain connectomic, brain transcriptomic, and gut–vagus multiomic analysis of the same individuals.
- A FAIR-compliant online portal linking barcoded specimens with behavioral, genetic, and multi-omic datasets, a dynamic, searchable platform for discovery.
Request samples
If you are interested, contact us or fill out a request form to initiate a collaboration:
Learn more in the publications describing the biobanks: Carrette et al., eNeuro 2021 (cocaine and oxycodone) and Doyle et al., eNeuro 2025 (alcohol).
Core leadership
- Olivier George, PhD, Professor, Psychiatry
- Giordano de Guglielmo, PharmD, PhD, Associate Professor, Psychiatry