MDMA-like stimulus effects of hallucinogens in male Fawn-Hooded rats.
Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior February 1998 DOI: 10.1016/s0091-3057(97)00415-2 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental animal study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 10 |
| Population | Male Fawn-Hooded rats |
| Interventions | MDMA MDE alpha-ethyltryptamine LSD cocaine mescaline |
| Dose | MDMA training dose 1.5 mg/kg; test doses: MDE 2.25 mg/kg, LSD 0.12 mg/kg, cocaine 2.5-10 mg/kg, mescaline 8-14 mg/kg |
| Topics | MDMA |
| Key findings | Fawn-Hooded rats discriminated MDMA with an ED50 of 0.136 mg/kg, similar to Sprague-Dawley rats. MDMA-like effects generalized to MDE, alpha-ethyltryptamine, and LSD, but not to cocaine or mescaline, indicating no difference in sensitivity or generalization profile. |
Abstract
A two-lever, food-motivated, operant technique was employed to train the purportedly serotonergically dysfunctional Fawn-Hooded (FH) rat to discriminate 1.5 mg/kg MDMA. Once all 10 male subjects learned the MDMA-vehicle discrimination at criterion performance level, doses different than the training dose were used to generate a dose-response discrimination gradient. The ED50 value of MDMA was shown to be 0.136 mg/kg, not significantly different from that of previously trained Sprague-Dawley male rats. Thus, the Fawn-Hooded rat appears to not differ in its sensitivity to lower doses of MDMA. Testing for MDMA-like stimulus generalizations with other drugs indicated that the MDMA derivative MDE produced generalization at a dose of 2.25 mg/kg and allowed for an ED50 value of 0.496 mg/kg. Like MDE, the testing of alpha-ethyltryptamine was shown to produce MDMA-like responding. Lastly, a dose of 0.12 mg/kg LSD produced 90% MDMA-lever selection. In contrast to MDMA generalizations to these three drugs, testing of cocaine at doses of 2.5-10 mg/kg and mescaline at 8-14 mg/kg did not produce MDMA-like discriminative effects. The results of this testing in the presumably serotonergically dysfunctional Fawn-Hooded rat would indicate that this line not only can discriminate MDMA as well as heterogenous-bred lines, but also shows the same discriminative generalizations and nongeneralizations from MDMA to serotonergic and dopaminergic agents.
Comparable studies
Other preclinical and animal studies on MDMA, most cited first.
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- Effects of certain hallucinogenic amphetamine analogs on the release of [3H]-serotonin from rat brain synaptosomes Journal of Medicinal Chemistry May 1, 1982
- Neuropharmacological reassessment of the discriminative stimulus properties ofd-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) Psychopharmacology 1987
- Altered responses to serotonergic agents in Fawn-Hooded rats. Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior March 1, 1985
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