Behavioral Neuroscience
January 1, 1996
Linda A. Parker
41 citations
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) produces a conditioned place preference only at the highest dose tested (0.2 mg/kg), and this preference is prevented by a single preexposure to the conditioning chamber (latent inhibition). When paired with sucrose, LSD doses from 0.05 to 0.2 mg/kg produce taste avoidance, but no dose produces an aversion to the taste as measured by the taste reactivity test. These results indicate that LSD, like other rewarding drugs, causes taste avoidance through a mechanism different from that of emetic drugs.
Behavioral Neuroscience
October 1, 1986
L L Kwong, E R Smith, J M Davidson et al.
38 citations
Three prosexual drugs—8-OH-DPAT, 5-methoxy-dimethyltryptamine, and RDS-127—showed strong potential as selective inhibitors of 5-HT1A receptor binding, suggesting they may enhance seminal emissions and ejaculations. In contrast, yohimbine, imiloxan, and idazoxan primarily affected alpha 2-adrenergic receptors. The study analyzed interactions using radioligand binding techniques on rat brain membranes, providing insights into the mechanisms underlying sexual behavior. Understanding these interactions could pave the way for new treatments addressing sexual dysfunction.
Behavioral Neuroscience
January 1, 2006
Evangeline Daniela, David Gittings, Susan Schenk
37 citations
Rats pressed a lever to receive intravenous MDMA, and their responding increased when the required number of presses rose from 1 to 5, decreased when saline replaced MDMA, and increased again when MDMA was restored. During training, each MDMA infusion was accompanied by a light. After an average of 19 daily sessions, omitting either the light or the drug caused responding to decline gradually over 15 days. Omitting both the light and the drug produced a dramatic and lasting decrease in responding. These results suggest that cues paired with MDMA acquire conditioned properties that may contribute to drug-taking behavior.
Behavioral Neuroscience
October 1, 2009
Jacobi I. Cunningham, Jamie Raudensky, John Tonkiss et al.
27 citations
Prior exposure to MDMA makes rats vulnerable to stress-induced learning impairments that do not occur with stress alone. Rats pretreated with MDMA and then exposed to mild chronic unpredictable stress seven days later showed impaired learning in the Morris water maze, whereas stress alone did not cause this deficit. MDMA alone increased anxiety-like behavior on the elevated plus maze, but chronic stress alone or combined with MDMA pretreatment did not increase anxiety. The learning impairment was not accompanied by enhanced depletion of the serotonin transporter in the hippocampus, suggesting the effect involves mechanisms beyond serotonin transporter loss.
Behavioral Neuroscience
January 1, 2006
David N. Harper, Maree Hunt, Susan Schenk
26 citations
Acute MDMA exposure disrupts memory performance in rats, possibly by increasing confusion between events from previous and current trials. In a delayed matching-to-sample task, lengthening the intertrial interval from 5 to 15 seconds reduced this disruption, suggesting that separating current-trial to-be-remembered events from previous-trial events can attenuate MDMA's memory-impairing effects.
Behavioral Neuroscience
January 18, 2024
Zahra Ghofrani-Jahromi, Sarah Nouri-Darehno, Mehrsa Rahimi-Danesh et al.
22 citations
A single injection of Psilocybe cubensis extract (25 mg/kg) given to male rats shortly before or after fear conditioning reduced PTSD-like freezing behavior in the short term (1 and 3 days after conditioning) but not after 21 days. The extract also decreased locomotor activity only briefly after administration, while it raised pain thresholds and reduced anxiety for a longer period. These results suggest that the mushroom's effects on PTSD-like behavior and activity are short-lived, but its influence on pain sensitivity and anxiety may persist.
Behavioral Neuroscience
April 4, 2019
J. Stewart
21 citations
Neurophenomenology correlates descriptions of lived experience with brain states, but such correlations alone do not solve the hard problem of consciousness. The interpretation of these correlations requires situating the brain within a living body in the world, placing neuroscience in the context of cognitive science (enaction) and biology (autopoiesis). Three attentional networks distinguish conscious from nonconscious events: orienting to sensory stimulation, activating memory patterns, and maintaining alertness. Phenomenological studies reveal a three-part structure of the present with past and future horizons, linking to cognitive neuroscience findings on minimal time for neural events. Voluntary action is inseparable from consciousness, with neural correlates preceding action and imagination playing a role.
Behavioral Neuroscience
October 1, 2010
David Quinteros-Muñoz, Patricio Sáez-briones, Gabriela Díaz-véliz et al.
12 citations
MDMA (ecstasy) produces a unique set of behavioral effects in rats that distinguishes it from both stimulants and hallucinogens. In a series of behavioral tests, the effects of MDMA at various doses were compared with those of methamphetamine (a stimulant) and DOI (a hallucinogen). The behavioral profiles allowed researchers to differentiate MDMA from these other drugs. Additionally, four structural analogues of MDMA were tested, but none exactly replicated MDMA's profile, some resembling the stimulant or hallucinogen instead. This highlights MDMA's distinct pharmacological identity as an entactogen.
Behavioral Neuroscience
June 1, 2024
Esther Mondragón
3 citations
A computational model of associative learning, the double error dynamic asymptote model, can help explain how spurious associations arise in schizophrenia. The model simulates mediated conditioning, mediated extinction, and a novel prediction of mediated enhancement of latent inhibition. Manipulating a parameter that controls memory retrieval and the decay of nonperceptual representations produces effects similar to those caused by ketamine on associative memories and mediated learning. The model offers a plausible error-correction mechanism that may account for associative deficits observed in animal models of schizophrenia.
Behavioral Neuroscience
October 1, 2024
Dong-Hyun Youn, Cheolmin Jo, Jin Mook Kim et al.
1 citation
A new chemical, t-BOC-3,4-MDMA, is a modified form of MDMA that can evade detection in the illicit drug market and can be converted into the controlled substance MDMA. In mice, a 5 mg/kg dose of t-BOC-3,4-MDMA significantly altered place preference, indicating rewarding effects, and at 0.5 mg/kg/infusion it induced drug-taking behavior in self-administration tests. Microdialysis in rats showed that the chemical increased dopamine levels in the striatum. These findings suggest that t-BOC-3,4-MDMA has potential for misuse.
Behavioral Neuroscience
June 15, 2023
Caitlyn J Bartsch, Sophia Aaflaq, Jessica T. Jacobs et al.
Ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic with antidepressant effects in humans, can worsen aggression in mice exposed to early life stress. In a mouse model, chronic social isolation followed by acute foot shock produced lasting excessive aggression. A single 10 mg/kg dose of ketamine given before the foot shock selectively increased aggression measured seven days later, without affecting sociability, anxiety, depression-like behavior, or locomotion. The findings suggest ketamine may specifically target aggression-related brain circuitry distinct from circuits governing other moods. Caution is advised when using ketamine for disorders linked to early life stress.
Behavioral Neuroscience
December 1, 2019
Clemens C C Bauer, Camila Caballero, Ethan Scherer et al.
Mindfulness training in middle-school children reduces stress and alters brain function. Forty children were randomly assigned to eight weeks of mindfulness or coding training. Before training, higher stress was linked to greater right amygdala activity when viewing fearful faces. After training, children who learned mindfulness reported lower stress and showed reduced right amygdala response to fearful faces, along with stronger connectivity between the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These brain changes occurred outside of meditation, suggesting the benefits generalize. The findings indicate that mindfulness can be integrated into school curricula and that its stress-reducing effects involve dampening amygdala reactions to negative stimuli.