Effect of repeated administrations upon cathinone discrimination and conditioned place preference

1. Eight male rats were trained to discriminate the interoceptive cues produced by 0.8 mg/kg l-cathinone in a two-lever, food-motivated operant task and they were, subsequently, tested for preference to cathinone in a conditioned place preference (CPP)-test. 2. Once trained, the rats were placed on a 10 day regimen of twice-a-day non-contingent administrations of saline followed by a similar regimen of multiple injections of 0.8 mg/kg cathinone. 3. After each series of non-contingent administrations, the rats' ability to discriminate (0.2-0.8 mg/kg) cathinone, as well as their preference for it, was determined. 4. Results indicate that tolerance tends to develop to the effect of cathinone in its ability to control discriminative behavior as indicated by deficits in discriminative performance and a two-fold shift of the dose-response curve to the right. 5. In contrast, preference for cathinone, in the CPP-tests, was not significantly affected by the multiple cathinone administration regimen. 6. The possibility that tolerance to some behavioral effects may occur in habitual users of the cathinone-containing Khat shrub is discussed.