Effect of learned behavior upon conditioned place preference to cathinone.

Effect of learned behavior upon conditioned place preference to cathinone.

Schechter M D

Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior

1991

1991-01

The purpose of this study was to examine whether first training rats to discriminate the stimulus cues produced by an indirect dopamine agonist, cathinone, would influence a subsequent test of preference. The conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm was used to evaluate the reinforcing effects of l-cathinone in four differently treated groups of rats. Half of the animals were trained to discriminate the interoceptive cues produced by 0.8 mg/kg cathinone in a two-lever, food-motivated operant task. The other animals were equally divided between two groups, one receiving saline and noncontingent reinforcements on the same schedule as those trained to discriminate cathinone; the other group, the "yoked-control" rats, received the same cathinone and saline regimen of administration as the discrimination-trained animals. Results of CPP testing indicate that cathinone produced a statistically significant conditioned place preference only in the group trained to discriminate cathinone and not in the saline or yoked control groups. Furthermore, when half of the cathinone discrimination-trained rats were pretreated with the dopamine release inhibitor CGS 10746B, the conditioned place preference to cathinone was attenuated. The results would indicate that pairing cathinone with a nonpreferred environment tended to make the rat spend more time in that environment and the amount of time spent in the cathinone-associated environment can be increased by prior discrimination training and decreased by diminished dopamine function in the brain.

Male; Animals; Rats; Dopamine/physiology; Cues; Discrimination (Psychology)/drug effects; Discrimination Learning/drug effects; Thiazepines/pharmacology; Antipsychotic Agents/pharmacology; Alkaloids/*pharmacology; Learning/*physiology; Inbred Strains; Receptors; Conditioning; Operant/*drug effects; Dopamine/drug effects

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