A Comparison of MDMA and Amphetamine in the Drug Discrimination Paradigm
The Open Addiction Journal March 29, 2011 DOI: 10.2174/1874941001104010022 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational study (drug discrimination paradigm) Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Rats |
| Interventions | MDMA d-amphetamine SCH23390 |
| Topics | MDMA |
| Citations | 4 |
| Key findings | Rats trained to discriminate MDMA from saline showed only partial generalization to amphetamine, and rats trained to discriminate amphetamine from saline showed only partial generalization to MDMA, indicating distinct subjective effects. SCH23390 administration altered discrimination performance in both groups. |
Abstract
This study used the Drug Discrimination paradigm to assess the relative subjective experience of acutely administered 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and d-amphetamine (AMPH). In this paradigm rats are required to respond on one lever if they have been given a specific drug (AMPH for one group of rats or MDMA for another group) vs an alternate lever if they have been administered saline prior to a session. Generalisation and substitution testing was used to establish the extent to which rats previously trained to discriminate saline vs MDMA responded to novel exposure of AMPH. Likewise, we examined the extent to which rats previously trained to discriminate saline vs AMPH responded to novel exposure to MDMA. Previous research [1, 2] has demonstrated that rats can learn to discriminate MDMA from amphetamine, thus it was expected that only partial, if any, generalisation would be observed when exposed to an untrained novel drug. In addition, we examined the effect of concurrent administration of the D1 antagonist SCH23390 had on discrimination performance in both groups.
Comparable studies
Other preclinical and animal studies on MDMA, most cited first.