Drug-drug heart rate conditioning in rats: effective USs when pentobarbital is the CS.
Injections of two drugs in sequence may be considered the Pavlovian pairing of one drug as a conditioned stimulus (CS) with a second drug as an unconditioned stimulus (US). If pentobarbital was the CS and d-amphetamine or nicotine sulfate the US, then after about four drug-drug pairings the pentobarbital CS produced a higher heart rate (HR) than control conditions. With the same pentobarbital CS, HR conditioning was not obtained with the following USs: atropine, caffeine, lithium chloride, continuous foot-shock, and intermittent foot-shock. Although amphetamine and nicotine are pharmacologically different, a common conditioning mechanism seems indicated because of striking similarities in their parametric effects as USs. There also were strong similarities in these two USs when the conditioned response was a reduced capacity of the CS drug to produce conditioned taste aversions.
Reilly
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Department of Psychology, Memorial University, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
Revusky
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D000661:Amphetamine / Q000494:pharmacology; D000818:Animals; D001285:Atropine / Q000494:pharmacology; D002110:Caffeine / Q000494:pharmacology; D002712:Chlorides / Q000494:pharmacology; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000187:drug effects*; D004597:Electroshock; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000187:drug effects*; D008094:Lithium / Q000494:pharmacology; D018021:Lithium Chloride; D008297:Male; D009538:Nicotine / Q000494:pharmacology; D010424:Pentobarbital / Q000494:pharmacology*; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D012055:Reinforcement Schedule; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D013649:Taste / Q000187:drug effects
D002712:Chlorides; D002110:Caffeine; D009538:Nicotine; D001285:Atropine; D008094:Lithium; D000661:Amphetamine; D018021:Lithium Chloride; D010424:Pentobarbital