Effects of prototypic calcium channel blockers in methadone-maintained humans responding under a naloxone discrimination procedure

Human Drug Discrimination: Elucidating the Neuropharmacology of Commonly Abused Illicit Drugs

Drug-discrimination procedures empirically evaluate the control that internal drug states have over behavior. They provide a highly selective method to investigate the neuropharmacological underpinnings of the interoceptive effects of drugs in vivo. As a result, drug discrimination has been one of the most widely used assays in the field of behavioral pharmacology. Drug-discrimination procedures have been adapted for use with humans and are conceptually similar to preclinical drug-discrimination techniques in that a behavior is differentially reinforced contingent on the presence or absence of a specific interoceptive drug stimulus. This chapter provides a basic overview of human drug-discrimination procedures and reviews the extant literature concerning the use of these procedures to elucidate the underlying neuropharmacological mechanisms of commonly abused illicit drugs (i.e., stimulants, opioids, and cannabis) in humans. This chapter is not intended to review every available study that used drug-discrimination procedures in humans. Instead, when possible, exemplary studies that used a stimulant, opioid, or Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (the primary psychoactive constituent of cannabis) to assess the discriminative-stimulus effects of drugs in humans are reviewed for illustrative purposes. We conclude by commenting on the current state and future of human drug-discrimination research.

Human drug discrimination: A primer and methodological review

Drug-discrimination procedures empirically evaluate the control that internal drug states exert over behavior. They provide a highly selective method to investigate the neuropharmacological underpinnings of the interoceptive effects of drugs. Historically, drug discrimination has been one of the most widely used assays in the field of behavioral pharmacology. Drug-discrimination procedures have also been adapted for use with humans and are conceptually similar to preclinical drug-discrimination techniques in that a behavior is differentially reinforced contingent on the presence or absence of a specific interoceptive drug stimulus. This review gives some general history and background concerning the major theoretical concepts and principles of drug-discrimination research as well as its relevance to substance-use disorders. This article also provides a procedural overview and discusses key methodological issues that must be considered when designing and conducting a human drug-discrimination study. Although drug discrimination is unequivocally one of the most sophisticated and useful behavioral assays to investigate the underlying neuropharmacology of drugs in vivo, enthusiasm for its use has steadily declined in the last decade and a half. We conclude by commenting on the current state of drug-discrimination research and suggest potential avenues for future drug-discrimination research. (PsycINFO Database Record

Endogenous opiates and behavior: 2013

This paper is the thirty-sixth consecutive installment of the annual review of research concerning the endogenous opioid system. It summarizes papers published during 2013 that studied the behavioral effects of molecular, pharmacological and genetic manipulation of opioid peptides, opioid receptors, opioid agonists and opioid antagonists. The particular topics that continue to be covered include the molecular-biochemical effects and neurochemical localization studies of endogenous opioids and their receptors related to behavior, and the roles of these opioid peptides and receptors in pain and analgesia; stress and social status; tolerance and dependence; learning and memory; eating and drinking; alcohol and drugs of abuse; sexual activity and hormones, pregnancy, development and endocrinology; mental illness and mood; seizures and neurologic disorders; electrical-related activity and neurophysiology; general activity and locomotion; gastrointestinal, renal and hepatic functions; cardiovascular responses; respiration and thermoregulation; and immunological responses.