Behavioural Pharmacology

Question 1

What effects of drugs can be tested in animals?

Answer 1

analgesia
anxiety
cognitive function

Question 2

How can the analgesic effects of a drug be tested?

Answer 2

measure the time taken for an animal to move away from a heat source; tail flick, hot plate

Question 3

How can the anxiolytic effects of a drug be tested?

Answer 3

elevated plus maze test; measure the amount of time an animal spends on exposed arms compared to dark, sheltered arms - highly predictive of human effects

Question 4

How can the cognitive effects of a drug be tested?

Answer 4

radial arms maze; spatial memory, cue-reward associations

morris water maze; spatial learning test

Question 5

How can drug reinforcement/incentive be measured?

Answer 5

conditioned place preference learning

drug self-administration

Question 6

What is conditioned place preference learning?

Answer 6

pairing an environment with a drug and measuring the amount of time an animal will subsequently spend in that environment

Question 7

What is a progressive ratio schedule?

Answer 7

exponential increase in the number of responses required for a reward, measures the breakpoint and drug motivation without consumption of a large amount of drug

Question 8

What is the rotarod test?

Answer 8

a test of balance and motor function

Question 9

What is positive reinforcement?

Answer 9

when the presentation of a stimulus increases a behaviour

Question 10

What is negative reinforcement?

Answer 10

when the removal of a stimulus increases a behaviour

Question 11

What is punishment?

Answer 11

when the presentation of a stimulus decreases a behaviour

Question 12

What are the advantages of a conditioned place preference test?

Answer 12

simple procedure
limited effort required
test administered in non-drug state

Question 13

What are the disadvantages of a conditioned place preference test?

Answer 13

doesn’t measure the rewarding effects of the drug itself, but the rewarding effects of the conditioned reinforcer
psychological and biological mechanisms poorly understood

Question 14

What is the gold standard of drug experiments?

Answer 14

IV injections that provide precise control of dose and timing

Question 15

Which drugs will non-human animals not administer?

Answer 15

hallucinogens

Question 16

How do the different schedules produce different behaviours?

Answer 16

FR schedules produce steady working for the drug

FI schedules produce scalloped plots

Question 17

Why do we see inverted U shapes on simple ratio/interval schedules?

Answer 17

satiety
preferred drug level
incapacitation

Question 18

Is rate of responding a good measure of reward?

Answer 18

it can be misleading as although responding may start decreasing, the total dose may still be increasing

Question 19

What experiment demonstrate conflicting evidence for responding-reward be observed?

Answer 19

DA lesions decrease amphetamine self-administration
DA antagonism increases self-administration
- both are interpreted as a loss of reward

Question 20

What are the benefits of a progressive ratio?

Answer 20

measures drug motivation; the maximum amount of effort that will be gone to for a reward
much less drug is consumed so lower satiation and motor side-effects

Question 21

What is a disadvantage of a progressive ratio?

Answer 21

extinction learning may occur

Question 22

What stimuli can reinstate drug taking?

Answer 22

drug prime
drug cue
drug context
stress

Question 23

What do extended access models reveal about drug taking?

Answer 23

Ahmed & Koob; rats with longer access to drugs have a much greater totally intake and intake in the first hour