Conditioned and Unconditioned Behavioral-Cognitive Effects of a Dopamine Antagonist in Rats

• Published in: Behavioral neuroscience 2000-12, Vol.114 (6), p.1251-1255
• Main Authors: Ohyama, Tatsuya, Horvitz, Jon C, Drew, Michael R, Gibbon, John, Malapani, Chara, Balsam, Peter D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal; Animals; Association Learning - drug effects; Behavior; Behavioral psychophysiology; Behavioral sciences; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive Processes; Conditioned Responses; Conditioning, Classical - drug effects; Dopamine Antagonists - pharmacology; Drug Administration Schedule; Drugs; Extinction, Psychological - drug effects; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Hypothesis Testing; Male; Mental Recall - drug effects; Neurology; Neurotransmission and behavior; Pimozide; Pimozide - pharmacology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychopharmacology; Rats; Reinforcement Schedule; Rodents; Time Perception - drug effects; Unconditioned Responses
• ISSN: 0735-7044; 1939-0084
• DOI: 10.1037/0735-7044.114.6.1251

Many drugs need to be taken multiple times to achieve a therapeutic effect. Researchers have identified several mechanisms to account for the slow onset of drug action, including drug accumulation and structural changes induced by drugs. This article provides an example of a new mechanism to account for this change in drug action. Stimuli that accompany drug administration may come to evoke conditioned responses (CRs), and these CRs may be the basis for changes in drug efficacy. Specifically, this research shows that a dopamine antagonist, pimozide, changes response rates through the direct action of the drug but changes time perception through the CRs elicited by drug administration.