Effects of the delta opioid against BW373U86 in pigeons trained to discriminate fentanyl, bremazocine and water in a three-choice drug discrimination procedure

Delta opioid discrimination learning in the rat: assessment with the selective delta agonist SNC80

The majority of reports assessing opioid drug discrimination learning (DDL) have concentrated on characterizing the stimulus properties of compounds selective for mu and kappa opioid receptors. Assessments of delta opioid DDL have been limited and, to date, these assessments have been restricted to the monkey and pigeon. No assessment of delta stimulus control has been examined in rodents. To that end, the present experiment examined discriminative control by the selective delta agonist SNC80 in rats and its generalization to and antagonism by compounds relatively selective to the delta and mu receptor subtypes using the conditioned taste aversion baseline of DDL. Animals injected with 5.6 mg/kg of SNC80 prior to a saccharin-LiCl pairing and with the SNC80 vehicle prior to saccharin alone acquired the discrimination within seven conditioning cycles. The discriminative effects of SNC80 were maximal at 20 min, partial at 120 min, and lost at 240 min. The discrimination was dose dependent in that as the dose of SNC80 increased, the amount of saccharin consumed decreased. In subsequent generalization tests, the delta agonist SNC162 produced SNC80-appropriate responding at a dose of 18 mg/kg. Conversely, the mu agonist morphine produced vehicle-appropriate responding at all doses tested. These selective generalization patterns with SNC162 and morphine suggest that the discriminative effects of SNC80 are mediated at the delta, but not the mu, receptor, a conclusion supported by the fact that SNC80's discriminative control was completely blocked by the delta-selective antagonist NTI, but not by the mu-selective antagonist naltrexone. The present findings indicate that not only do rats readily discriminate both mu- and kappa-selective agonists from their respective vehicles, but they also discriminate compounds that are selective for the delta receptor subtype, thus extending the class of compounds that can serve such discriminative functions for the rat.

Sex differences in discriminative stimulus and diuretic effects of the kappa opioid agonist U69,593 in the rat

Female and male rats were trained to discriminate the kappa opioid agonist (5alpha,7alpha,8beta)-(-)-N-methyl-[7-(1-pyrrolidinyl) -1-oxaspiro(4,5)dec-8-yl]benzeneacetamide (U69,593, 0.13 mg/kg SC) from vehicle using a FR-10 schedule of food reinforcement. Female rats took significantly longer than males to acquire the discrimination (66.9 vs. 44.1 sessions, respectively), and the ED50 for U69,593 discrimination was significantly higher in females than in males (0.074 vs. 0.025 mg/kg). The time course of U69,593 discrimination also differed between the sexes: peak and offset occurred earlier in females than in males. The ED50 for bremazocine substitution was significantly higher in females than in males (0.0039 vs. 0.0006 mg/kg), whereas ethylketazocine substituted for U69,593 in all males and five of seven females, with no sex difference in substitution ED50. Morphine and BW373U86 did not substitute for U69,593 in a majority of rats of either sex. U69,593 also produced significantly less urine output/dose in females compared to males (e.g., 5.92 vs. 14.83 ml urine/kg body weight after 1.0 mg/kg U69,593), but was equipotent between the sexes in producing hot-plate antinociception. There was no sex difference in response rate-decreasing effect of any opioid agonist tested, and no sex difference in brain/blood ratio of [3H]U69,593 measured in a separate group of rats, suggesting that sex differences observed in some effects of U69,593 probably are not due to sex differences in U69,593 pharmacokinetics. When retested at the end of the study, U69,593 and bremazocine were no longer differentially potent as discriminative stimuli in females and males, suggesting that factors that change over time (e.g., additional training, age, hormonal status) may contribute to initial sex differences in discriminability of U69,593.

Endogenous opiates: 1996

This paper is the nineteenth installment of our annual review of research concerning the opiate system. It summarizes papers published during 1996 reporting the behavioral effects of the opiate peptides and antagonists, excluding the purely analgesic effects, although stress-induced analgesia is included. The specific topics covered this year include stress, tolerance and dependence; eating; drinking; gastrointestinal, renal, and hepatic function; mental illness and mood; learning, memory, and reward; cardiovascular responses; respiration and thermoregulation; seizures and other neurological disorders; electrical-related activity; general activity and locomotion; sex, pregnancy, and development; immunological responses; and other behaviors.