Repeated post- or presession cocaine administration: roles of dose and fixed-ratio schedule

Effects of repeated administration of cocaine to animals behaving under operant contingencies have depended on when the drug is given. Moderate doses given presession have generally led to a decrease in the drug's effect, an outcome usually referred to as tolerance. When these same doses have been given after sessions, the usual result has been no change or an increase in the drug's effects, with the latter usually referred to as sensitization. In the present study, repeated postsession administration of a relatively small dose of cocaine (3.0 or 5.6 mg/kg) to pigeons responding under a multiple fixed-ratio 5, fixed-ratio 100 schedule of food presentation generally resulted in tolerance to the rate-decreasing effects of the drug. When the same dose was given before sessions, little additional tolerance was observed, although some subjects showed further tolerance in the small-ratio component. A regimen of repeated postsession injection of larger (10.0-23.0 mg/kg) doses suppressed key pecking during the session; responding resumed following discontinuation of postsession administrations. Effects of postsession administration of cocaine, therefore, depended on the dose, with smaller doses leading to tolerance and larger ones to suppression of behavior during the session. Effects of postsession drug administration of either small or large doses were not related to whether effects of postsession drug were experienced mainly in the operant test chamber or in the pigeon's home cage. The results with large postsession doses are compatible with a view that the drug acted as a Pavlovian unconditional stimulus, with the session-related stimuli acting as a long-duration Pavlovian conditional stimulus. Tolerance following postsession administration of the smaller doses challenges the view that it depended on experiencing the drug's effects while the arranged reinforcement contingencies were in effect.