Journal
BEHAVIOURAL PHARMACOLOGY
Volume 24, Issue 5-6, Pages 448-458Publisher
LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS
DOI: 10.1097/FBP.0b013e328363d1a4
Keywords
amphetamine; intracranial self-stimulation; monoamine releasers; rat; rate dependency
Funding
- National Institute of Health [R01-DA026946, F30-DA034478, R01-DA012790]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Rate dependency' in the discipline of behavioral pharmacology describes a phenomenon wherein the effect of a drug on the rate of a behavior varies systematically as a function of the baseline, predrug rate of that behavior. Historically, rate-dependency studies have compared drug effects on different baseline rates of behavior maintained either by different schedules of reinforcement or during sequential segments of a fixed-interval schedule. The current experiment generated different baseline rates of behavior by altering frequency of electrical stimulation in an intracranial self-stimulation assay. Amphetamine and 10 other monoamine releasers were analyzed for their ability to produce rate-dependent effects in this assay. There were three main findings. First, all compounds produced rate-dependent effects at some dose. Second, one parameter of rate-dependency plots (peak Y-intercept of the regression line) correlated with in-vitro neurochemical data on selectivity of these compounds to release dopamine versus serotonin (P<0.025, R-2=0.50). Lastly, a correlation between peak Y-intercept and breakpoints under a progressive-ratio procedure in nonhuman primates was also significant (P<0.05, R-2=0.64). Overall, these results extend the rate-dependent effects of monoamine releasers to behavior maintained under intracranial self-stimulation and suggest that, at least for monoamine releasers, the Y-intercept parameter of rate-dependency plots might be a useful metric of drug reward and predictor of drug self-administration measures of drug reinforcement.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available