Chapter 14 - Use of Drug Discrimination Learning in Behavioral Toxicology: Classification and Characterization of Toxins

Abstract

This chapter focuses on drug discrimination learning, a research design used exclusively in behavioral pharmacology. Within behavioral pharmacology, this general design is used primarily in the assessment of the stimulus properties of recreational and abused drugs. The design is also extensively used in drug characterization. Once discriminative control is established to a particular drug, other compounds can be co-administered with the training drug to determine if and to what extent these compounds either antagonize or potentiate the discriminative control of the training drug. The assessment of drug interactions by the drug discrimination procedure has focused primarily on drug antagonism, however, assessments of potentiation have also been made. It has been noted that the noradrenergic antagonist yohimbine potentiated the stimulus effects of amphetamine, a potentiation thought to be mediated by the antagonistic effects of yohimbine at α2 presynaptic autoreceptors. Given that the amphetamine stimulus may be noradrenergically mediated, the antagonism of presynaptic autoreceptors should increase overall noradrenergic activity and potentiate its stimulus effects. This chapter discusses the application of drug discrimination learning to drug classification and characterization. The chapter also elaborates the application of drug discrimination to behavioral pharmacology and behavioral toxicology.