Discriminative Stimulus Properties of New psychoactive substances in Mice

초록

New psychoactive substances (NPS), also referred to as designer or synthetic drugs, pose significant challenges to drug consumers, clinicians, researchers, and policymakers globally. The rapid emergence of NPS on the global drugs market highlights concerns regarding their chemical composition, metabolic profile, and associated health risks. It is increasingly important to assess the addictiveness of NPS and analyze their properties. Drug discrimination studies can offer valuable insights into the subjective effects and abuse potential of NPS by training animals to discriminate between NPS and control substances. Through this method, researchers can evaluate whether NPS produce subjective effects similar to those of known addictive drugs. This behavioral model helps minimize confounding factors and allows for versatile drug administration. In this study, our objective is to determine whether mice can discriminate between morphine and the morphine analogue U49900. Mice underwent training to discriminate between morphine (5 mg/kg) and saline in a two-lever choice task. Dose-dependent lever response and response rate curves were obtained, the morphine cue generalized to U49900. These findings suggest that U49900 exhibits pharmacological properties similar to morphine, a positive control substance, and indicating potential for abuse.