Drug-induced cues in studying mechanisms of drug action

Abstract

This paper describes how drug-cues can be used to study psychoactive drug mechanisms. Several overall approaches can be utilized. In one such approach, drug-cues can be either (1) compared with other pharmacological agents, or (2) the pharmacological mechanism of the cue can be evaluated by attempting to antagonize it with various receptor antagonists. A second approach involves studying the mechanism of a drug-cue by central neuropharmacologieal manipulations. In this approach the site of action of the cue can be characterized by comparing the peripherally generated cue to drug administered into various brain area sites. In addition, the mechanism of action can be studied by attempting to mimic the peripherally-generated cue by stimulating various CNS sites electrically, or one can attempt to alter the cue by the selective neurotoxic lesioning of various brain area sites. This latter approach can provide much information concerning possible neurochemical mechanisms involved in how the drug cue is elicited. Finally, one can compare drug cues with other pharmacological models of drug action such as the rat fundus pA 2 model which has the value of allowing a better understanding of possible structure activity relationships of various psychoactive drugs. The drug-cue provides a very good model of a psychoactive drug effect, which can assist in obtaining important information concerning drug-receptor interactions using an in vivo rat preparation.