Amphetamine discrimination as a test for anti-parkinsonism drugs.
Rats were trained and tested on a two-lever discrimination task based upon the presence or absence of 0.8 mg/kg d-amphetamine. After 80% criterion performance was attained, dopaminergic drugs reported to be effective in the treatment of Parkinson's disease were tested to investigate their ability to produce d-amphetamine-like responding. Amantidine (50 mg/kg), apomorphine (2.5 mg/kg), n-propylnoraporphine (0.1, 0.2 and 1.0 mg/kg), and piribedil (25 mg/kg) were all observed to produce d-amphetamine-appropriate responding. These results indicate that discriminative behavior controlled by d-amphetamine is mediated by central dopaminergic systems and the use of this technique in the evaluation of potential anti-Parkinsonism drugs is discussed.
D000547:Amantadine / Q000494:pharmacology; D000818:Animals; D000978:Antiparkinson Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001058:Apomorphine / Q000494:pharmacology; D001060:Aporphines / Q000494:pharmacology; D003913:Dextroamphetamine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000187:drug effects; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000187:drug effects*; D008297:Male; D010891:Piribedil / Q000494:pharmacology; D051381:Rats
D000978:Antiparkinson Agents; D001060:Aporphines; D000547:Amantadine; D010891:Piribedil; D001058:Apomorphine; D003913:Dextroamphetamine