Effects of dopamine D2-like receptor agonists in mice trained to discriminate cocaine from saline: Influence of feeding condition

In rats, the discriminative stimulus effects of direct- and indirect acting dopamine receptor agonists are mediated by multiple dopamine receptor subtypes and the relative contribution of dopamine D-2 and D-3 receptors to these effects varies as a function of feeding condition. In these studies, free-fed and food-restricted mice were trained to discriminate 10.0 mg/kg cocaine using a two-lever discrimination procedure in which responding was maintained by food. Both groups of mice acquired the discrimination; however, lice-led mice responded at lower rates than food-restricted mice. Dopamine D-3 receptor agonists, pramipexole and quinpirole, increased cocaine-appropriate responding (>85%) in food-restricted, but not in lice-led mice. The dopamine D-2 receptor agonist, sumanirole, and the nonselective dopamine receptor agonist, apomorphine, failed to increase cocaine-appropriate responding in either group. Free-fed mice were more sensitive than food-restricted mice to the rate-decreasing effects of dopamine receptor agonists and these effects could not be overcome by increasing the magnitude of reinforcement. Because feeding condition did not alter quinpirole-induced hypothermia, it is unlikely that differences in the discriminative stimulus or rate-decreasing effects of dopamine D-2-like receptor agonists were clue to differences in the pharmacokinetic properties of the drugs. Although these results suggest that the discriminative stimulus effects of cocaine are mediated by both dopamine D-2 and D-3 receptors in food-restricted mice, the increased sensitivity of free-fed mice to the rate-decreasing effects of dopamine D-2-like receptor agonists limited conclusions about the impact of feeding conditions on the relative contribution of dopamine D-2 and D-3 receptors to the discriminative stimulus effects of cocaine. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.