The effects of dl-cathinone in a gustatory avoidance paradigm

When the presentation of a novel food to a rat is followed by the injection of a certain compounds, including many psychomotor stimulants, the animal consumes less of that food on subsequent presentations compared to an animal injected with saline. This phenomenon has been termed gustatory avoidance conditioning. The effect of dl-cathinone, a psychomotor stimulant drug structurally similar to amphetamine, was determined in this paradigm. Fluid intake was limited to a single 15 min presentation, seven days a week. Following the determination of baseline water intake, sweetened milk was presented for five consecutive sessions. There were six groups of rats with each group receiving a different dose of cathinone (0--16.0 mg/kg) five min after the session each day. Following these five days of milk-cathinone pairings, milk intake was significantly decreased only in the rats receiving 16 mg/kg. These results indicate that cathinone which is nearly as potent as amphetamine in many other behavioral measures, is less potent in inducing gustatory avoidance responses.