Effects of cocaine and morphine under mixed-ratio schedules of food delivery: support for a behavioral momentum analysis

Reinforcer magnitude and rate dependency: evaluation of resistance-to-change mechanisms

Under many circumstances, reinforcer magnitude appears to modulate the rate-dependent effects of drugs such that when schedules arrange for relatively larger reinforcer magnitudes rate dependency is attenuated compared with behavior maintained by smaller magnitudes. The current literature on resistance to change suggests that increased reinforcer density strengthens operant behavior, and such strengthening effects appear to extend to the temporal control of behavior. As rate dependency may be understood as a loss of temporal control, the effects of reinforcer magnitude on rate dependency may be due to increased resistance to disruption of temporally controlled behavior. In the present experiments, pigeons earned different magnitudes of grain during signaled components of a multiple FI schedule. Three drugs, clonidine, haloperidol, and morphine, were examined. All three decreased overall rates of key pecking; however, only the effects of clonidine were attenuated as reinforcer magnitude increased. An analysis of within-interval performance found rate-dependent effects for clonidine and morphine; however, these effects were not modulated by reinforcer magnitude. In addition, we included prefeeding and extinction conditions, standard tests used to measure resistance to change. In general, rate-decreasing effects of prefeeding and extinction were attenuated by increasing reinforcer magnitudes. Rate-dependent analyses of prefeeding showed rate-dependency following those tests, but in no case were these effects modulated by reinforcer magnitude. The results suggest that a resistance-to-change interpretation of the effects of reinforcer magnitude on rate dependency is not viable.

In vivo effects of abused 'bath salt' constituent 3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) in mice: drug discrimination, thermoregulation, and locomotor activity

In recent years, synthetic analogues of naturally occurring cathinone have emerged as psychostimulant-like drugs of abuse in commercial 'bath salt' preparations. 3,4-Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) is a common constituent of these illicit products, and its structural similarities to the more well-known drugs of abuse 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), and methamphetamine (METH) suggest that it may have similar in vivo effects to these substances. In these studies, adult male NIH Swiss mice were trained to discriminate 0.3 mg/kg MDPV from saline, and the interoceptive effects of a range of substitution doses of MDPV, MDMA, and METH were then assessed. In separate groups of mice, surgically implanted radiotelemetry probes simultaneously monitored thermoregulatory and locomotor responses to various doses of MDPV and MDMA, as a function of ambient temperature. We found that mice reliably discriminated the MDPV training dose from saline and that cumulative doses of MDPV, MDMA, and METH fully substituted for the MDPV training stimulus. All three drugs had similar ED(50) values in this procedure. Stimulation of motor activity was observed following administration of a wide range of MDPV doses (1-30 mg/kg), and the warm ambient temperature potentiated motor activity and elicited profound stereotypy and self-injurious behavior at 30 mg/kg. In contrast, MDPV-induced hyperthermic effects were observed in only the warm ambient environment. This pattern of effects is in sharp contrast to MDMA, where ambient temperature interacts with thermoregulation, but not locomotor activity. These studies suggest that although the interoceptive effects of MDPV are similar to those of MDMA and METH, direct effects on thermoregulatory processes and locomotor activity are likely mediated by different mechanisms than those of MDMA.

Facilitation of extinction of operant behaviour in C57Bl/6 mice by chlordiazepoxide and D-cycloserine

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVE

Effects on the extinction of GABAergic drug, chlordiazepoxide (CDP), and glutamatergic drug, D: -cycloserine (DCS), in C57BL/6 mice were compared.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Following a palatability test (Experiment 1), Experiments 2-6 involved food-reinforced lever press training followed by extinction sessions at 1- or 4-day intervals. The effects of drugs were examined. Experiment 7 involved a two-lever task.

RESULTS

CDP did not affect food palatability (Experiment 1), but facilitated extinction when administered prior to extinction sessions via intracerebral (Experiment 2) or peripheral administration at 1-day (Experiments 3-7) or 4-day intervals (Experiment 6). Reducing the amount of training prior to extinction reduced the delay in the effect of CDP typically seen, and CDP had a larger effect in early sessions on mice that had received less training (Experiment 3). There was some evidence that CDP could be blocked by flumazenil (Experiment 4), and CDP withdrawal reversed extinction facilitation (Experiments 5 and 7). With 4-day intervals, DCS administered immediately following extinction sessions, or pre-session CDP, facilitated extinction with 48-trial sessions (experiment 6B). With six-trial sessions, the co-administration of post-session DCS enhanced facilitation produced by pre-session CDP (experiment 6A). Finally, CDP facilitated extinction in a dose-related fashion following training on a two-lever food-reinforced task (Experiment 7).

CONCLUSIONS

The findings are consistent with the hypotheses that two neurotransmitter systems have different roles in operant extinction and that glutamatergic systems are involved in extinction learning and GABAergic systems involved in the expression of that learning. This parallels findings with extinction following Pavlovian conditioning, which has been more extensively investigated.

Disruptive effects of prefeeding and haloperidol administration on multiple measures of food-maintained behavior in rats

Four rats responded under a choice reaction-time procedure. At the beginning of each trial, the rats were required to hold down a center lever for a variable duration, release it following a high- or low-pitched tone, and press either a left or right lever, conditionally on the tone. Correct choices were reinforced with a probability of .95 or .05 under blinking or static houselights, respectively. After performance stabilized, disruptive effects of free access to food pellets prior to sessions (prefeeding) and intraperitoneal injection of haloperidol were examined on multiple behavioral measures (i.e., the number of trials completed, percent of correct responses, and reaction time). Resistance to prefeeding depended on the probability of food delivery for the number of trials completed and reaction time. Resistance to haloperidol, on the other hand, was not systematically affected by the probability of food delivery for all dependent measures.

Cocaine and automaintained responding in pigeons: rate-reducing effects and tolerance thereto with different durations of food delivery

Pigeons were exposed to an automaintenance procedure in which 6-s key illuminations in one color (red or white) were immediately followed by 3-s food deliveries and key illuminations in the other color were followed by 9-s food deliveries. Both conditions engendered consistent responding. With both durations of food delivery, acute and chronic cocaine administrations (1.0-17.8 mg/kg) produced dose-dependent decreases in mean percent trials (key illuminations) with a response and mean total response per session. Tolerance developed to the disruptive effects of cocaine on both response measures. Food duration did not significantly affect either response measure or significantly interact with cocaine dose or drug regimen. The orderliness of the present findings, like those of a related study examining whether probability of food delivery modulated the effects of cocaine on automaintained responding [Porritt, M., Arnold, M., Poling, A., Cocaine and automaintained responding in pigeons: rate-reducing effects and tolerance thereto with different CS-US pairing probabilities. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 2007; 87:405-411.], suggests that the automaintenance procedure is a useful assay for examining tolerance to drug effects on classically-conditioned responding. Unlike the results of that study, however, the present findings are inconsistent with a behavioral momentum analysis of drug effects on such responding.

Cocaine and automaintained responding in pigeons: rate-reducing effects and tolerance thereto with different CS-US pairing probabilities

To examine whether CS-US pairing probability, hence rate (or probability) of food delivery, modulated the effects of cocaine, pigeons were exposed to an autoshaping procedure in which 6-s red, green, and white illuminations of a response key were immediately followed by response-independent food delivery with a probability of 1.0, 0.5, and 0.25, respectively. Substantial responding occurred at all probabilities. Pre- and post-chronic administrations of cocaine (1.0-17.8 mg/kg) produced dose-dependent decreases in mean percent trials (key illuminations) with a response and total responses per session at all probabilities. In general, sensitivity to the drug was lowest at the highest probability, suggesting that rate (or probability) of food delivery influenced the behavioral effects of cocaine.

Resistance to change of alcohol self-administration: effects of alcohol-delivery rate on disruption by extinction and naltrexone

A common finding in resistance to change research with food-maintained operant behavior is that the persistence of behavior depends on the rate of reinforcement delivered in the context in which the behavior occurs. The present experiment evaluated the effects of rate of response-dependent alcohol delivery on the resistance to change of rats' alcohol self-administration in the face of disruption produced by extinction and a range of doses of naltrexone (1.0, 3.0, 10.0 mg/kg, subcutaneous). Rats responded for a 10% alcohol solution in a multiple schedule of reinforcement arranging a higher rate of alcohol delivery (variable interval 15 s) in the presence of one stimulus and a lower rate of alcohol delivery (variable interval 45 s) in the presence of another stimulus. Baseline response rates and resistance to extinction were higher in the presence of the stimulus associated with higher rates of alcohol delivery. This finding is consistent with studies of the resistance to change of food-maintained behavior. The rate of alcohol delivered in the components, however, did not systematically affect resistance to disruption by naltrexone. One interpretation of this finding from the perspective of behavioral momentum theory is that naltrexone may decrease the impact of alcohol-associated stimuli on the persistence of drinking by reducing sensitivity to the relative reinforcement conditions arranged in the presence of different stimuli.

Morphine tolerance as a function of ratio schedule: response requirement or unit price?

Key pecking by 3 pigeons was maintained by a multiple fixed-ratio 10, fixed-ratio 30, fixed-ratio 90 schedule of food presentation. Components differed with respect to amount of reinforcement, such that the unit price was 10 responses per 1-s access to food. Acute administration of morphine, l-methadone, and cocaine dose-dependently decreased overall response rates in each of the components. When a rate decreasing dose of morphine was administered daily, tolerance, as measured by an increase in the dose that reduced response rates to 50% of control (i.e., the ED50 value), developed in each of the components; however, the degree of tolerance was smallest in the fixed-ratio 90 component (i.e., the ED50 value increased the least). When the l-methadone dose-effect curve was redetermined during the chronic morphine phase, the degree of cross-tolerance conferred to l-methadone was similar across components, suggesting that behavioral variables may not influence the degree of cross-tolerance between opioids. During the chronic phase, the cocaine dose-effect curve shifted to the right for 2 pigeons and to the left for 1 pigeon, which is consistent with predictions based on the lack of pharmacological similarity between morphine and cocaine. When the morphine, l-methadone, and cocaine dose-effect curves were redetermined after chronic morphine administration ended, the morphine and l-methadone ED50s replicated those obtained prior to chronic morphine administration. The morphine data suggest that the fixed-ratio value (i.e., the absolute output) determines the degree of tolerance and not the unit price.