Drug discrimination procedures: roles of relative stimulus control in two-drug cases

Establishment of auditory discrimination and detection of tinnitus induced by salicylic acid and intense tone exposure in the rat

Rats were trained in a two lever food reinforced operant procedure to discriminate a 8000 Hz pure tone stimulus from its absence. Responding on one lever was reinforced in the presence of the tone and responding on the other lever was reinforced when the tone was absent. Frequency generalization testing yielded an inverted U-shaped function, whereas sound pressure level generalization testing yielded a continuous decrease in responding on the tone associated lever with decreasing sound pressure levels. The administration of sodium salicylic acid (150-450 mg/kg) generated responding on the tone associated lever suggesting that salicylic acid induced an experience that had commonalities with the percept of the training tone stimulus. After exposure to intense sound, responding consistent with the presence of tinnitus was achieved and Lidocaine failed to reduce tinnitus behavior. The use of a two choice design helped avoid confounding factors induced by drug induced side effects. Further, since no auditory cues were employed in the test situation the model achieves resistance to potential bias due to hearing impairment and hyperacusis. We propose that this model may be useful in detecting tinnitus.

Modulation of the endocannabinoid system: therapeutic potential against cocaine dependence

Dependence on cocaine is still a main unresolved medical and social concern, and in spite of research efforts, no pharmacological therapy against cocaine dependence is yet available. Recent studies have shown that the endocannabinoid system participates in specific stages and aspects of drug dependence in general, and some of this evidence suggests an involvement of the cannabinoid system in cocaine effects. For example, cocaine administration has been shown to alter brain endocannabinoid levels, and the endocannabinoid system has been involved in long-term modifications of brain processes that might play a role in neuro/behavioral effects of psychostimulant drugs like cocaine. Human studies show that marijuana dependence is frequently associated with cocaine dependence, and that the cannabinoid receptor CNR1 gene polymorphism might be related to cocaine addiction. This article will review the main papers in the field showing how a modulation of different components of the cannabinoid system might interact with some of the neurobiological/behavioral effects of cocaine related to its reinforcing effects, evaluated in preclinical models or in clinical settings. The goal of this review will be to provide insights into the complex picture of cocaine abuse and addiction, and to extrapolate from such endocannabinoid-cocaine interactions useful information to test the therapeutic potential of cannabinoid ligands and endocannabinoid-level enhancers against cocaine dependence for future preclinical/clinical trials.

The discriminative stimulus effects of cocaine in a pavlovian sexual approach paradigm in male Japanese quail

Two groups of male Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) were trained [corrected] to discriminate cocaine from saline in a conditioned approach procedure maintained by sexual reinforcement. For 1 group, cocaine (10 mg/kg ip) was administered prior to a conditioned stimulus (CS) that predicted copulation; saline followed by a CS predicted no copulation. A second group underwent the opposite training regimen. Results revealed apparent between-group differences in the rates of acquisition of the discrimination; however, during extinction trials, both groups responded more under the drug condition that predicted the female than to the condition that predicted no female. The results suggested that a drug discrimination may be maintained by sexual reinforcement. The findings are discussed with regard to interactions of cocaine and sexual reward, as well as to Pavlovian conditional stimulus control.

LSD, 5-HT (serotonin), and the evolution of a behavioral assay

Research in our laboratory, supported by NIDA and facilitated by Roger Brown, has indicated that serotonergic neuronal systems are involved in the discriminative stimulus effects of LSD. However, the only compounds that fully antagonize the LSD cue act at both serotonin (5-HT) and dopamine (DA) receptors. In addition, substitution for LSD in standard drug vs. no-drug (DND) discriminations does not necessarily predict either similar mechanisms of action or hallucinogenic potency because 'false positives' occur when animals are given drugs such as lisuride (LHM), quipazine, or, possibly, yohimbine. These effects can be greatly reduced by using drug vs. drug (D-D), drug vs. drug vs. no drug (D-ND), or drug vs. ' other' drug (saline, cocaine, pentobarbital) training procedures. Additional studies, in which drugs were administered directly into the cerebral ventricles or specific brain areas, suggest that structures containing terminal fields of serotonergic neurons might be involved in the stimulus effects of LSD.

Discrimination of cocaethylene in rats trained to discriminate between its components

Two groups of eight male Normalized/National Institutes of Health (N/Nih) rats were used in a food-motivated, 2-lever drug discrimination task with one group being trained to discriminate between 10 mg/kg cocaine vs. 1 g/kg ethanol, whereas the second group was trained to discriminate the metabolic product of these two agents, i.e., cocaethylene (10 mg/kg) vs. its saline vehicle. All drugs were administered intraperitoneally and training/testing was conducted 15 min post-injection. Once both groups of animals attained criterion performance, they were each tested in sessions, interspersed with maintenance sessions, with numerous doses of both cocaine and cocaethylene; this resulted in a typical dose-response relationship in each group but indicated that the cocaine-ethanol trained animals were more sensitive to the lower doses of cocaine (as indicated by a decreased ED50 value, i.e., 1.74 mg/kg) when compared to previously trained cocaine-saline animals (ED50 4.22 mg/kg) and, that in both groups, cocaine was significantly more potent than was cocaethylene. Although numerous laboratories have trained drug vs. drug in the drug discrimination paradigm, this is the first study to train animals to discriminate between two drugs which, although having different discriminative properties, form a third psychoactive compound when co-administered. The sensitivity of drug-drug testing vs. drug-saline testing is discussed, as well as the use of these two agents in human abuse.

Drug discrimination using a Pavlovian conditional discrimination paradigm in pigeons

Three pigeons were studied using a discriminated autoshaping procedure in which the presence or absence of methadone served as a conditional stimulus signalling which of two key light CSs would be followed by grain access. Drug sessions alternated randomly with no-drug sessions. Methadone (2.0 mg/kg) was administered prior to drug sessions in which a black vertical line on a white background served as CS+ and a diffuse white keylight served as CS- (reversed for bird 681). Saline or no injection was administered prior to no-drug sessions and the CS+/CS- contingencies were reversed. Discriminated performances emerged in which over 80% of the responding occurred to the appropriate stimulus. Stimulus control by methadone was assessed by presenting a range of methadone doses during 10-trial extinction sessions. A graded dose-effect curve was produced with low doses of methadone controlling saline-appropriate responding and higher doses controlling drug-appropriate responding. A range of doses of morphine, cocaine, and pentobarbital were also tested. Morphine produced methadone-appropriate responding while cocaine and pentobarbital did not.

Increased drug sensitivity in the drug discrimination procedure afforded by drug versus drug training

Rats were trained to discriminate norfenfluramine (NF) 1.4 mg/kg from its vehicle or amphetamine (AMPH) 0.8 mg/kg or pentobarbital (PB) 6.0 mg/kg in order to determine the role that drug combination training plays in the rate of learning and sensitivity to lower drug doses. The results suggest that drug versus drug training can increase the rate of drug discrimination learning for some drugs that are learned slowly when trained in a drug versus vehicle training procedure, whereas drug versus drug training does not increase the rate of learning for other drugs that are learned rapidly. Drug versus drug training does, however, appear to increase the level of stimulus control of the training drug for all drugs examined in this study.

Differentiation between the stimulus effects of (+)-lysergic acid diethylamide and lisuride using a three-choice, drug discrimination procedure

The discriminative stimulus properties of (+)-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and lisuride hydrogen maleate (LHM), were compared in a three-choice, water reinforced (FR 20) situation in which rats were required to press one lever following LSD (0.08 mg/kg), a second lever following LHM (0.04 mg/kg), and a third lever following saline. Reliable drug-appropriate responding was established in 72 sessions. Dose-response tests with LSD and LHM indicated that, as dose increased, the per cent of responding on the lever associated with the particular training drug also increased; little or no cross-transfer occurred between LSD and LHM. In generalization tests, the serotonin (5-HT) agonist quipazine substituted for LSD but not LHM while the dopamine (DA) agonist apomorphine mimicked LHM but not LSD; an unrelated compound, pentylenetetrazol (PTZ), produced responding on the saline-appropriate lever. In combination tests, 5-HT antagonists (e.g., BC-105 and low doses of pirenperone) blocked responding on the LSD lever while DA antagonists (e.g., haloperidol and much higher doses of pirenperone) blocked LHM-appropriate responding. These data suggest that the three-lever (D-D-N) procedure is similar to, but can be more sensitive than the two-lever (D-N) procedure (because it can differentiate between LSD and LHM); they therefore at least partially support the hypothesis that three-choice discriminations can be conceptualized as two separate, two-choice (D-N) discriminations (Jarbe and Swedberg 1982). The results also confirm suggestion that the stimulus effects of LSD and LHM are mediated by different mechanisms; the primary action of LSD is serotonergic (5-HT2), while that of LHM is dopaminergic (White 1986).

Behavioral interaction between cocaine and caffeine: a drug discrimination analysis in rats

The effects of caffeine upon the discriminative and rate-altering effects of cocaine were examined in rats. Using a food-reinforced two-lever operant procedure, 12 Sprague-Dawley male rats were trained to discriminate between 10 mg/kg cocaine and saline. Stimulus generalization tests with both cocaine and amphetamine resulted in a dose-related increase in cocaine-appropriate responding. A variable response rate topography was produced by cocaine. Caffeine also engendered a dose-related increase in cocaine-appropriate responding and resulted in a potency ratio of 15:1 when compared to cocaine. In contrast, increasing doses of caffeine produced a biphasic response rate function (first increases and then decreases). Response choice data suggested a potency relationship of amphetamine greater than cocaine greater than caffeine. Caffeine potentiated the discriminative stimulus properties of cocaine. Isobolographic analysis characterized this interaction as simple additivity. However, caffeine's effects upon the rate-altering effects of cocaine resulted in a biphasic interaction pattern. With low doses of cocaine in combination with various doses of caffeine, the interaction for rate reduction is best categorized as "supra-additive," in contrast, increasing either the cocaine dose or caffeine dose could change the interaction to simple additivity and/or infra-additivity.

Qualitative discrimination between cocaine and amphetamine in rats

After extensive training, rats discriminated amphetamine (1 mg/kg) from cocaine (either 5, 10 or 12.5 mg/kg) in a two lever drug versus drug discrimination task. In tests with saline, selection of the cocaine lever occurred in animals trained with 5 mg/kg cocaine. At higher training doses of cocaine, a (dose-related) tendency for lever selection to be equally distributed between the two levers was seen after saline injections. These data show that, at specific pairs of doses of cocaine and amphetamine, a qualitative discrimination between the drugs develops.

The chlordiazepoxide/pentylenetetrazol discrimination: characterization of drug interactions and homeostatic responses to drug challenges

Rats were trained to discriminate chlordiazepoxide (CDP) from pentylenetetrazol (PTZ) in a two-lever food motivated discrimination task. Training drug doses were adjusted until subjects emitted approximately 50% of their responses on each of the two drug-appropriate levers during saline injection tests. Tests that followed injection of CDP/PTZ combinations illustrated a reciprocal antagonism between the two drugs. Saline-injection tests that followed large dose injections of CDP revealed a period of predominantly PTZ-appropriate responding that persisted after the initial period of predominantly CDP-appropriate responding. These data are interpreted to suggest that, unlike some other drugs that have been shown to antagonize the behavioral and CNS effects of benzodiazepines, the interoceptive stimulus generated by PTZ occupies a position opposite to that of CDP along some single affective continuum. In addition, these data suggest that drug/drug (DD) discriminations are capable of characterizing the interactions between training drugs. Finally, the data suggest that the CDP/PTZ discrimination is a sensitive detector of bidirectional shifts in interoceptive stimulus state along the CDP/PTZ continuum.

Discriminative stimulus effects of N-allylnormetazocine in rats trained to discriminate a kappa from a sigma agonist

Rats were trained to discriminate ethylketocyclazocine (EKC) from vehicle, phencyclidine (PCP) from vehicle, or ethylketocyclazocine from phencyclidine on a two-lever operant task with a fixed-ratio 30 schedule of food-reinforcement on the appropriate lever. The three groups were tested with the training drugs (i.e., EKC and PCP), N-allylnormetazocine (NANM), and the (+)- and (-)-isomers of N-allylnormetazocine. EKC produced EKC-appropriate responding in the EKC-vehicle group and in the EKC-PCP group; it produced vehicle-appropriate responding in the PCP-vehicle group. Similarly, PCP produced PCP-appropriate responding in the PCP-vehicle group and in the EKC-PCP group but vehicle-appropriate responding in the EKC-vehicle group. The (+)-isomer of NANM produced PCP-appropriate responding in both the PCP-VEH and EKC-PCP groups, whereas the (-)-isomer produced EKC appropriate responding in the EKC-VEH and EKC-PCP groups. The results of this study demonstrate that rats can be trained to discriminate a kappa-agonist from a PCP/sigma-agonist and can differentiate these discriminative stimulus properties of other test compounds. These results also indicate that the (-)-isomer of NANM has kappa-agonist discriminative stimulus properties, whereas PCP/sigma-like effects are produced by the (+)-isomer.

The effect of training dose on discrimination of compound drug-exteroceptive stimuli

Rats were trained to discriminate between two compound stimulus arrays that included exteroceptive (ES) and interoceptive (IS) stimulus components. The ES components were illumination and tactile cues, and the IS components were produced by d-amphetamine (A) or Na pentobarbital (P) treatment (drug versus drug discrimination). The relative ES-IS strength was then determined by testing with "mismatched" stimulus arrays consisting of combinations of ES and IS components that had not been presented simultaneously during training. Additional tests were done with ES only (no drug treatments). At training doses of 0.8 mg/kg A versus 10 mg/kg P, the ES were less salient than, but did share stimulus control with, the stronger IS components. In a second group, trained with lower doses (0.5 mg/kg A versus 4 mg/kg P), the ES were much more salient than the IS, although again, both types of stimuli did acquire some control. This dose-related sharing of stimulus control between ES and IS components is similar to relationships among components of compound arrays consisting entirely of ES, and thus further illustrates similarity between drug-produced and exteroceptive stimuli.