paraChlorophenylalanine potentiates facilitatory effects of mescaline on shuttlebox escape/avoidance in rats
David M. Stoff, Richard Jed Wyatt, J. Christian Gillin
Psychopharmacology 1976 DOI: 10.1007/bf00427615 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Hooded rats |
| Interventions | parachlorophenylalanine (pCPA) mescaline |
| Dose | 150 mg/kg pCPA, 39.6 mg/kg mescaline |
| Duration | 24 hours pretreatment with pCPA before mescaline; testing during acquisition and in stable pretrained poor avoiders |
| Topics | Mescaline Serotonin |
| Keywords | Avoidance response Dopamine Avoidance learning Norepinephrine |
| Citations | 6 |
| Key findings | pCPA pretreatment potentiated mescaline's facilitatory effects on avoidance behavior, but the combination led to long-term poor avoidance performance. |
Abstract
Acute parachlorophenylalanine (pCPA) pretreatment (150 mg/kg, i.p., 24 h beforehand) potentiated facilitatory effects of mescaline (39.6 mg/kg i.p.) on shuttlebox escape/avoidance in hooded rats, tested in two different situations: 1. during aquisition of avoidance behavior (Experiment 1); and 2. in stable pretrained poor avoiders (Experiment 2). pCPA alone did not influence avoidance behavior in either situation. Mescaline, with pCPA pretreatment, may be associated with long-term behavioral effects; all rats treated with this combination were later found to be poor avoiders, unable to achieve a stable baseline of good avoidance. pCPA significantly depleted brain norepinephrine and dopamine, as well as serotonin, measured after testing in the second situation.