Interaction of ethanol and tetrahydro-beta-carboline (THBC) in a discriminative task.

Interaction of ethanol and tetrahydro-beta-carboline (THBC) in a discriminative task.

Schechter M D; Signs S A

Alcohol (Fayetteville, N.Y.)

1988

1988-08

Rats (n = 10) were trained to discriminate between ethanol (600 mg/kg, IP) and its vehicle, or between THBC (20 mg/kg) and its vehicle in a two-lever food-motivated operant task. Once the discriminative training criterion was attained, rats in each group were administered different doses of both ethanol and THBC. The ED50 of ethanol in the ethanol-trained rats was 298.0 mg/kg and 15 mg/kg THBC produced ethanol-like responding. The ED50 of THBC in the THBC-trained rats was 3.63 mg/kg and 1200 mg/kg ethanol produced THBC-like responding. The cross-generalization between ethanol and THBC is, thus, indicated and relates to previous evidence in which both ethanol- and THBC-trained rats generalize to a common agent, TFMPP, a putatively specific 5HT1B receptor agonist. Taken together, these observations suggest that beta-carbolines may play a role in the discriminative stimulus properties of ethanol.

Male; Animals; Rats; Ethanol/*pharmacology; Behavior; Drug Interactions; Discrimination Learning/*drug effects; Conditioning (Psychology)/drug effects; Carbolines/*pharmacology; Dose-Response Relationship; Drug; Inbred Strains; Animal/drug effects

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331–335

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