Effects of chronic administration of (+)‐amphetamine on maze performance of the rat

Abstract

1. The influence of (+ )-amphetamine, given 1 min after each training session, on the performance of 124 rats in a Lashley III maze was measured every 48 hr. 2. The first three injections of the drug significantly improved the learning ability of naive rats. 3. With prolonged treatment, (+)-amphetamine strongly impaired the maze performance of these rats. 4. The chronic administration of (+)-amphetamine to previously trained rats produced the same adverse effect. 5. Amylobarbitone sodium given to previously trained rats 30 min before the training sessions completely blocked the adverse effect of (+)-amphetamine. 6. (+ )-Amphetamine did not produce impairment of performance when given chronically 30 min before training sessions, to previously trained rats.

Postexposition administration of d-amphetamine impairs the habituation of rats to an open field

“…Taking this into consideration, it is possible that our results indicate that amphetamine administered i m m e d i ate ly after the exposure impaired the decrease of fear, possibly through an association between the open-field situation and the drug effects. Therefore, our data would support the suggested aversive effect of amphetamine (Breda et al, 1969). However, animals of low index did not respond to the amphetamine treatment; at the fourth exposure, the s cor e s 0 f e Ii min a t ion for amphetamine-treated and control rats with a low index of defecation were zero, a value which was maintained during the rest of the experiment.…”

“…However, a biphasic effect of amphetamine on rats trained in a Lashley III maze was recently reported (Breda et al, 1969); after an initial improvement there was a decay of performance. It was suggested that an aversive effect of the drug led to an approach-avoidance conflict (Breda et al, 1969). The present report presents the results of a study designed to detect the suggested aversive effect of amphetamine in an open-field arena.…”

Actions of nicotine on the acquisition of an autoshaped lever-touch response in rats

“…If a drug is sufficiently aversive (or rewarding), behavior may become suppressed in the presence of the discriminative stimulus after repeated post-training drug injections. Such "conditioned suppression" of responding has been observed after post-training administration of amphetamine (Breda et al 1969;Carlini et al 1972), pentylenetetrazol (Carlini et al 1972), and electroconvulsive shock (Adams and Lewis 1962). Nicotine has been shown to have suppressive effects on behavior in humans (Russell 1979;Henningfield and Goldberg 1983) and experimental animals (Goldberg and Spealman 1983).…”

“…6, bottom). In contrast to nicotine, post-training amphetamine impaired performance in both experimentally naive and well-trained rats (Breda et al 1969). If impairment of levertouch responding after post-session administration was solely a result of the aversive properties of nicotine, suppression of responding should have been observed in both partially-trained and well-trained animals (Fig.…”

Modulation of Learning and Memory: Effects of Drugs Influencing Neurotransmitters

“…Thus, doses of amphetamine (2 mg/kg) which produced RA for a single-trial inhibitory avoidance response were without effect on a single-trial appetitive task Games, 1975). While repeated posttrial amphetamine injections reportedly disrupt memory (Breda et al, 1969), these effects may be attributed to chronic effects of amphetamine since memory was facilitated during early training in this study.…”