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Drug trace discrimination with nicotine and morphine in rats
I P Stolerman1, E Childs, B Hahn
1Section of Behavioural Pharmacology, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK. i.stolerman@iop.kcl.ac.uk
Behavioural Pharmacology
|May 7, 2002
Summary
This study explored if drug effects before training sessions could be learned by rats. Results suggest pre-session drug states can act as weak discriminative stimuli, influencing behavior.
Area of Science:
- Pharmacology
- Behavioral Neuroscience
- Drug Discrimination
Background:
- Drug discrimination studies typically involve drug exposure before and during training.
- The role of pre-session drug effects as discriminative stimuli remains an area of investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine if pre-session drug effects can function as discriminative stimuli in rats.
- To investigate stimulus control by drug states occurring prior to training sessions.
Main Methods:
- Rats were trained using a two-lever discrimination procedure with food reinforcement.
- Nicotine and morphine were administered pre-session, with antagonists (mecamylamine and naloxone) used to block acute effects during training.
- Extinction tests were conducted to assess stimulus control.
Main Results:
- Drug discriminations were acquired slowly, reaching 70-75% accuracy.
- Extinction tests confirmed stimulus control by nicotine and morphine despite antagonist administration.
- Antagonists reduced the response-rate-decreasing effects of the agonists.
Conclusions:
- Pre-session drug states can serve as discriminative stimuli, though potentially weakly.
- Trace conditioning may contribute to the observed stimulus control due to the time lag between drug effect termination and training.
- Further research is needed to fully elucidate the mechanisms of stimulus control by pre-session drug states.