Reinforcing Efficacy of Amphetamine in Adolescent and Adult Male Rats
نویسندگان
چکیده
Rationale: Amphetamine abuse by adolescents predicts long-term drug dependence. Heightened vulnerability to drug abuse could be due to higher sensitivity to drug’s reinforcing effects. Rodents are used to study age-related sensitivities to drugs. Objective: We compared intravenous amphetamine self-administration between adolescent and adult male rats on an operant schedule of reinforcement measuring the reinforcing efficacy of a drug. Methods: After surgery, adolescent and adult rats acquired lever-pressing behavior reinforced by amphetamine infusions. Results: Both age groups exhibited more infusions per session as dose increased. However, neither the number of infusions per session nor total amphetamine intake differed across age groups. Conclusion: Although rapid transition is reliable to test reinforcing properties of stimulants, results suggest that amphetamine is an equally efficacious reinforcer among both age groups. In regards to humans, these results suggest that other factors, like social influences, explain higher rates of drug intake by adolescent compared with adult humans. INDEX WORDS: amphetamine, age, adolescent, rat REINFORCING EFFICACY OF AMPHETAMINE IN ADOLESCENT AND ADULT MALE RATS
منابع مشابه
Dopamine uptake inhibitors but not dopamine releasers induce greater increases in motor behavior and extracellular dopamine in adolescent rats than in adult male rats.
Most life-long drug addiction begins during adolescence. Important structural and functional changes in brain occur during adolescence and developmental differences in forebrain dopamine systems could mediate a biologic vulnerability to drug addiction during adolescence. Studies investigating age differences in psychostimulant responses have yielded mixed results, possibly because of different ...
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