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Action of a chronic administration of mescaline in dynamic behavioural situations

A Fundarò, L Molinengo, M.c. Cassone, Marco Orsetti

Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry 1986 DOI: 10.1016/0278-5846(86)90042-4 (opens in new tab)

Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Experimental study Peer reviewed
Population Rats
Intervention mescaline
Dose 4 mg/kg/day, 10 mg/kg/day, 9 mg/kg/day
Topics Mescaline
Keywords Lever Reinforcement Conditioning Schedule Pharmacology Anesthesia Developmental psychology Plant-based medicinal research
Citations 4
Key findings Chronic mescaline at 4 mg/kg/day blocked rats' ability to switch to a newly reinforced lever in a reversal test, while 9 mg/kg/day had an excitatory effect that increased reinforced responses beyond controls.

Abstract

The modifications of the rat behaviour caused by a chronic administration of mescaline were studied in two schedules of operant conditioning. In the "periodic conditioning" test, the schedule of reinforcement was changed from a fixed ratio to a fixed interval schedule. Mescaline (4 mg/kg/day and 10 mg/kg/day) caused no modification of the ability of the rat to adapt its behaviour to the new experimental situation. In the "reversal test" the contingency for food delivery was switched from one lever, where responses were previously reinforced to the other lever where responses had no programmed consequences. A chronic administration of mescaline (4 mg/kg/day) caused a total incapacity of the rat to switch to the lever which became reinforced in the reversal trial. A chronic administration of 9 mg/kg/day of mescaline had an excitatory effect and the number of reinforced responses in the II and III reversals exceeded the unreinforced responses in a measure greater than in the controls.

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

Citations in the library

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