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Drug discrimination in rats under concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules.

D E McMillan1, W C Hardwick

  • 1Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock 72205, USA.

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
|February 22, 2000
PubMed
Summary
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This study found that specific reinforcement schedules are crucial for accurately measuring drug effects in rats. Adjusting schedules improved the ability to determine drug dose-response relationships.

Area of Science:

  • Behavioral pharmacology
  • Operant conditioning
  • Drug discrimination

Background:

  • Accurate determination of drug dose-effect relations is essential in pharmacology.
  • Concurrent variable-interval (VI) schedules are used to study drug discrimination.
  • The matching law predicts response distribution based on reinforcement rates.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the influence of concurrent variable-interval (VI) schedules on drug discrimination in rats.
  • To determine optimal schedules for generating reliable drug dose-response curves.
  • To assess the control exerted by drug presence versus reinforcement schedules.

Main Methods:

  • Rats were trained to discriminate pentobarbital from saline using concurrent VI schedules.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Response distributions were analyzed under various VI schedules (e.g., VI 20s/VI 80s, VI 50s/VI 50s, VI 60s/VI 240s).
  • Dose-response curves were generated for pentobarbital and other drugs under optimized schedules.

    • Main Results:

    • Under initial VI schedules, rats' responding was lower than predicted by the matching law.
    • A concurrent VI 50s/VI 50s schedule resulted in near-equal responding, hindering drug effect assessment.
    • A concurrent VI 60s/VI 240s schedule, and later VI 150s/VI 150s, allowed for drug presence to control responding and generate dose-response curves.

    Conclusions:

    • The choice of concurrent variable-interval schedule significantly impacts the control exerted by drug states in discrimination tasks.
    • Schedules with greater differences in reinforcement rates (e.g., VI 60s/VI 240s) are more effective for generating reliable drug dose-response curves.
    • Optimized schedules enable accurate assessment of drug effects, comparable to other methods and species.