title: Tolerance to morphine in the rat: associative and nonassociative effects.
abstract: Two experiments were conducted to examine the impact of dose level and interdose interval (IDI) on the development of tolerance to the analgesic effect of morphine. In Experiment 1, rats were administered a series of low- (5 mg/kg) or high- (30 mg/kg) dose injections of morphine either explicitly paired or unpaired with a distinctive context at a 48-hr IDI. The development of tolerance following this regimen was assessed by shifts in dose-response curves to the right when animals were tested on a tail-flick device in the distinctive context. Only animals that had received morphine paired with the distinctive context were tolerant to morphine; the magnitude of this associative tolerance was a positive function of the level of the conditioning dose. In Experiment 2, rats were exposed to a high dose of morphine (30 mg/kg) either paired or unpaired with a distinctive context at one of two IDIs (24 or 96 hr). Tolerance testing revealed that at the long IDI, only associative tolerance was evident, whereas at the short IDI, tolerance in the unpaired condition was more pronounced with a corresponding decline in the development of associative tolerance. The relevance of these findings for psychological theories of drug tolerance are discussed. The overall pattern of results are consistent with the predictions of an habituation model of drug tolerance.
authors.affiliation: Purdue University, Department of Psychological Sciences, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907.
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Tiffany
authors.forename: P M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Maude-Griffin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning / Q000187:drug effects*; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000187:drug effects; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D004361:Drug Tolerance; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic / Q000187:drug effects; D007858:Learning / Q000187:drug effects*; D008297:Male; D009020:Morphine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D009619:Nociceptors / Q000187:drug effects*; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D012684:Sensory Thresholds; D012931:Social Environment
chemical_list: D009020:Morphine