The Effects of d-Amphetamine on Intake of Food and a Sweet Fluid Containing Cocaine

Abstract

Using a laboratory animal procedure designed to measure two aspects of reinforcement (self-administration and location preference), five adult rhesus monkeys each lived in three chambers: oral cocaine self-administration (0.26 mg/kg/delivery cocaine hydrochloride in a sweet fluid) was specific to one end chamber, food self-administration was specific to the other end chamber, and no food cues or fluid cues were available in the middle chamber. Throughout the 10-h experimental day monkeys experienced multiple food, cocaine, and choice (food vs. sweet cocaine fluid), sessions. Oral d-amphetamine (AMPH; 0.5–1.5 mg/kg) or placebo was administered before the sessions to determine if this anorectic drug would differentially alter food and sweet cocaine fluid self-administration. Further, the effects of AMPH on the length of time a monkey spent in each chamber, when the stimulus cues indicating commodity availability were not present (location preference) were determined. AMPH produced dose-dependent decreases in both food and cocaine self-administration without affecting choice behavior. AMPH also increased the length of time monkeys spent in the food chamber, even when no stimuli indicating food availability were present. These results indicate that the relationship between self-administration and location preference measures of reinforcement is not completely concordant. The current procedure may prove useful in studying these two measures of reinforcement.