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Naloxone potentiates the disruptive effects of mescaline on operant responding in the rat

Randall L. Commissaris, K.E. Moore, Richard H. Rech

Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior October 1, 1980 DOI: 10.1016/0091-3057(80)90289-0 (opens in new tab)

Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Experimental study Peer reviewed
Population Food-deprived male rats
Interventions Mescaline Naloxone
Dose 4.0--10.0 mg/kg mescaline; 1.0-8.0 mg/kg naloxone
Duration 40-minute operant session
Topics Mescaline
Keywords +-naloxone Pharmacology Antagonist Reinforcement Self-administration Hallucinogen Anesthesia Receptor
Citations 8
Key findings Pretreatment with naloxone dose-dependently potentiated the disruptive effects of mescaline on operant responding in rats.

Abstract

Food-deprived male rats were trained to press a lever on a fixed ratio-40 (FR-40) operant schedule for food reinforcement. Administration of mescaline (4.0--10.0 mg/kg) immediately before the start of the operant session resulted in a cessation of responding for some portion of the 40-min period ("hallucinatory pause"). The duration of this pause was found to be dose-dependent. Although administration of naloxone alone (1.0-8.0 mg/kg, five minutes prior to the start of the session) had no effect on FR-40 responding per se, pretreatment with this agent significantly potentiated the disruptive effects of mescaline. This potentiation by naloxone was further shown to be dose-dependent. These data suggest that the effects of the phenethylamine hallucinogen mescaline are potentiated by pretreatment with the narcotic antagonist naloxone.

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

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