The effects of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine (DOM), 2,5-dimethoxy-4-ethylamphetamine (DOET), d-amphetamine, and cocaine in rats trained with mescaline as a discriminative stimulus
Psychopharmacology 1975 DOI: 10.1007/bf00421179 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Animal experiment Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Rats |
| Interventions | Mescaline DOM DOET d-amphetamine cocaine |
| Dose | 0.3 mg/kg DOM, 0.3 mg/kg DOET, 1 mg/kg d-amphetamine, 30 mg/kg cocaine |
| Topics | Mescaline |
| Keywords | Amphetamine Stimulus control Pharmacology Hallucinogen Anesthesia |
| Citations | 24 |
| Key findings | DOM and DOET mimic mescaline as a discriminative stimulus in rats, while d-amphetamine and cocaine do not, suggesting mescaline's stimulus effects correlate with pre-hallucinogenic rather than hallucinogenic activity. |
Abstract
The effects of mescaline (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenylethylamine), a hallucinogen, can function as a discriminative stimulus in appropriately trained rats. As a test of the hypothesis that those pharmacologic properties which distinguish hallucinogens and non-hallucinogens in man are reflected in distinctive stimuli in rats, the present experiments examined the effects of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine (DOM), 2,5-dimethoxy-4-ethylamphetamine (DOET), d-amphetamine, and cocaine in rats trained with mescaline as a discriminative stimulus. Administration of a range of doses of DOM and DOET to subjects in which saline functioned as SD and mescaline as Sdelta revealed that a dose of 0.3 mg of either DOM or DOET was equivalent to the training dose of mescaline. When tested in rats in which mescaline served as SD, DOM and DOET were likewise found to mimic mescaline. In contrast, doses of d-amphetamine and cocaine (1 and 30 mg/kg, respectively) which were equivalent to the training dose of mescaline as Sdelta, did not result in responding appropriate for the mescaline condition when mescaline was trained as SD. When DOET (0.3 mg/kg) was substituted for saline as Sdelta, no evidence of discriminated responding was obtained in the course of 50 sessions. The present data, in conjunction with previous observations, suggest that those effects of mescaline in the rat which function as a discriminative stimulus are better correlated with pre-hallucinogenic LSD-like activity in man then with hallucinogenic activity per se. Thus, these effects in rats represent a necessary but not a sufficient condition for prediction of hallucinogenic activity in man.
Comparable studies
Other preclinical and animal studies on mescaline, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Correlation between the potency of hallucinogens in the mouse head-twitch response assay and their behavioral and subjective effects in other species. C57BL/6J mice | 2020 | Experimental study with dose-response experiments | |
| Brain mechanisms of hallucinogens and entactogens Humans and rats | 2001 | Review | |
| Effects of hallucinogenic agents mescaline and phencyclidine on zebrafish behavior and physiology Zebrafish (Danio rerio) | 2012 | Experimental study | |
| Lysergic Acid Diethylamide- and Mescaline-Induced Attenuation of the Effect of Punishment in the Rat Rats | 1976 | Experimental study | |
| Dihydrobenzofuran Analogues of Hallucinogens. 3. Models of 4-Substituted (2,5-Dimethoxyphenyl)alkylamine Derivatives with Rigidified Methoxy Groups Rats (trained to discriminate saline from LSD tartrate) and rat cortical and... | 1996 | In vivo drug discrimination assay and in vitro radioligand binding assay |