Conditioned activity and the interaction of amphetamine experience with morphine's activity effects

Behaviorally conditioned effects of psychoactive drugs in experimental animals: What we have learned from nearly a century of research and what remains to be learned

Continuous treatment with drugs is a crucial requirement for managing various clinical conditions, including chronic pain and neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression or schizophrenia. Associative learning processes, i.e. Pavlovian conditioning, can play an important role for the effects of drugs and could open new avenues for optimizing patient treatment. In this narrative literature review, we summarize available data in experimental animals regarding the behaviorally conditioned effects of psychostimulants such as d-amphetamine and cocaine, the dopamine receptor agonist apomorphine, the dopamine receptor antagonist haloperidol, morphine and antidepressant drugs. In each section, the drug under discussion is briefly introduced, followed by a detailed examination of conditioning features, including doses and dosing regimens, characteristics of the conditioning process such as test environments or specific conditioned stimuli, testing and conditioned response characteristics, possible extinction or reconditioning or reversal training, neural mechanisms, and finally, the potential clinical relevance of the research area related to the drug. We focus on key outcomes, delve into methodical issues, identify gaps in current knowledge, and suggest future research directions.

Anticipatory responding, exclusive drug-context pairing and conditioned effects in sensitization to apomorphine-induced climbing in mice

1. The conditioning aspects of contextual sensitization were examined in the case of apomorphine-induced wall-climbing in mice, measuring onset latencies of the pharmacological response and controlling differential habituation to the test context during drug treatment. 2. Sensitization was generated in male out-bred mice which received intermittent i.p. injections of 0.4 mg/kg apomorphine over 9 daily sessions. On day 10, they were tested for contextual sensitization (all mice under apomorphine). On day 14, after 3 sessions of reinstatement, mice were tested for conditioned climbing (all mice under saline). 3. It was found that simultaneous exposure to both apomorphine and the test context facilitated the expression of a full-blown contextual sensitization (some non-contextual sensitization emerging too); importantly, sensitization was accompanied by a progressive shortening of the latencies to climb (before injections); conditioned climbing appeared only in mice pairing the drug with the test context, that response being absent in mice treated outside the context or never exposed to the context. 4. It is likely that contextual sensitization to apomorphine-induced climbing relies on Pavlovian conditioning processes rather than on habituation-related processes.

Effect of chlorpromazine on mouse ambulatory activity sensitization caused by (+)-amphetamine

The development of sensitization to the ambulation-increasing effect of (+)-amphetamine (2.5 mg kg-1) was found to be dose-dependently inhibited when 1 or 2 mg kg-1 chlorpromazine was administered concomitantly, and the sensitization to (+)-amphetamine was almost completely suppressed when co-administered with 4 mg kg-1 chlorpromazine. Following a challenge dose of 2.5 mg kg-1 (+)-amphetamine, mice pretreated with (+)-amphetamine alone or with (+)-amphetamine plus 1 or 2 mg kg-1 chlorpromazine showed similar marked enhancement of the sensitization. However, mice that had been given (+)-amphetamine plus 4 mg kg-1 chlorpromazine displayed only slight enhancement of the effect compared with the activity level in saline-pretreated mice.

Differential sensitization to ambulation-increasing effect of methamphetamine after repeated administration to mice in activity cages of different sizes

We have demonstrated that repeated administration of methamphetamine (MAP) 1-2 mg/kg, s.c. in a tilting-type round activity cage with a diameter of 20 cm (20 cm-cage) at 1-7 day intervals produces progressive enhancement of the ambulation-increasing effect (AIE), showing sensitization (reverse tolerance) in mice. However, almost no sensitization was observed when mice had been pretreated with the same doses of MAP but confined in a narrow environment repeatedly. In this experiment, changes in the sensitization were investigated in mice after repeated pretreatments with MAP at 2 mg/kg at 3-4 day interval for 4 times in activity cages of 5 different sizes (5, 10, 15, 30 and 40 cm in diameter) in comparison with that of in the 20 cm-cage. AIE obtained after MAP in the 5- and 10-cm cages was not enhanced, whereas AIE was significantly enhanced in the cages of more than 15 cm in diameter. There was no significant difference in the enhanced AIE among the 4 groups that received the same pretreatment repeatedly in the cages of 15, 20, 30 and 40 cm in diameter. The present results suggest that in accordance with the all-or-none law, development of the sensitization is affected by the size of the activity cage in which the animals have repeatedly experienced the acute drug effect.