DRUGS ON LEARNED & SPONTANEOUS BEHAVIOR OF EXPERIMENTAL ANIMAL

药物在相关种属中的行为药理学特征 对于定量评估药物如何发挥作用是必要的， 以及使用或滥用药物如何影响其他方面 主体的行为。 正在进行的关于直接行为 药物的作用包括许多不同的范例。 各种 的研究涉及观察自发和习得的变化， 急性或慢性注射药物后的行为。 比如说， 我们最近发现可卡因代谢酶 全身给予大鼠丁酰胆碱酯酶（BChE）可 减弱运动激活（精神兴奋剂）的作用 可卡因 这一结果很可能是由于酶的能力， 缩短可卡因的作用时间。 添加至大鼠血浆中，BChE 大大缩短了可卡因的半衰期 此外，酶 改变了代谢模式， 产生代谢物芽子碱甲酯，而不是 苯甲酰芽子碱 BChE本身对自发活动没有影响。 这些结果表明，BChE应作为一种治疗方法进行评估。 可卡因滥用和成瘾。 其他广泛的研究正在进行中 研究药理学机制， 尼古丁、甲基苯丙胺和可卡因等精神药物 作为区别刺激或影响正在进行的学习行为。 在一系列研究中，我们使用实验室动物， 描述慢性条件下尼古丁-咖啡因的相互作用 咖啡因暴露 使用各种行为技术，如 自我给药、药物辨别和固定间隔时间表 食物强化的研究， 我们已经证明， 大鼠饮用水中的慢性咖啡因暴露似乎（1） 显著增强IV尼古丁自我给药的获得，（2） 定性改变尼古丁的辨别线索， 改变尼古丁辨别的获得率，但（3） 对尼古丁的作用影响不大， 食物一直在回应。 在一般情况下，在我们的研究中获得的结果 到目前为止，实验室清楚地揭示了一种相当复杂的模式， 尼古丁-咖啡因的相互作用似乎取决于 行为的特定方面。 获得的结果 在这些实验室的实验可能有助于更好地了解 尼古丁与咖啡因在人体内的相互作用

The behavioral pharmacological profile of a drug in a pertinent species is necessary for evaluating quantitatively how the drug functions as a reinforcer and how use or abuse of the drug effects other aspects of the subject's behavior. Ongoing studies on the direct behavioral effects of drugs include a number of different paradigms. A variety of studies involve observations of changes in spontaneous and learned behavior following acute or chronic injections of drugs. For example, we have recently shown that the cocaine metabolizing enzyme butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) systemically administered to rats can attenuate the locomotor activating (psychomotor stimulant) effect of cocaine. This result is most probably due to the enzyme's ability to shorten the duration of action for cocaine. Added to rat plasma, BChE dramatically shortened cocaine's half-life. Further, the enzyme altered the metabolic pattern such that the relatively non-toxic metabolite ecgonine methyl ester was produced, rather than benzoylecgonine. BChE itself had no effect on locomotor activity. These results suggest that BChE should be evaluated as a treatment for cocaine abuse and addiction. A wide range of other studies are ongoing to investigate pharmacological mechanisms that determine how psychoactive drugs such as nicotine, methamphetamine, and cocaine function as discriminative stimuli or effect ongoing learned behavior. In one series of studies we are using laboratory animals to characterize nicotine-caffeine interactions under conditions of chronic caffeine exposure. Using a variety of behavioral techniques such as self-administration, drug discrimination and fixed-intervals schedule of food reinforcement that are commonly used to investigate the behavioral effects of psychostimulants we have demonstrated that chronic caffeine exposure in the drinking water of rats appears to (1) markedly enhance acquisition of IV nicotine self-administration, (2) qualitatively change the discriminative cue of nicotine without altering the rate of acquisition of a nicotine discrimination, but (3) has little impact on the effects of nicotine on schedule-controlled food maintained responding. In general, the results obtained in our laboratory thus far, clearly reveal a rather complex pattern of nicotine-caffeine interactions which appears to depend upon the particular aspect of behavior under examination. The results obtained in these laboratory experiments may aid in better understanding of nicotine-caffeine interactions in humans.