PSYCHOLOGY MASTER'S THESIS ABSTRACT

Katsura Nakamura
MA-Research
August 1999

Serotonergic Modulation of Amphetamine-Induced Place Preference in Rats: A Therapeutic Perspective

    Drugs abused by humans such as amphetamine have been found to enhance mesolimbic dopamine (DA) activity and to produce a conditioned place preference (CPP) in laboratory animals.  Several lines of evidence indicate that serotonin (5-HT) may modulate the DA activity and alter rewarding effects of addictive drugs, suggesting a therapeutic potential of serotonergic agents.  Although most types of 5-HT receptors exert inhibitory effects on DA reward, an exception may be 5-HT3 receptors which appear to have excitatory effects.  Therefore, it was hypothesized that both fluoxetine, an indirect 5-HT agonist, and MDL72222, a 5-HT3 receptor antagonist, would block or attenuate the post-conditioning expression of an amphetamine-induced CPP.

    The results indicated that amphetamine treatment significantly produced a CPP, confirming the reinforcing effect of amphetamine.  However, contrary to the expectation, neither fluoxetine nor MDL72222 affected the expression of the amphetamine-induced CPP.  Possible explanations of the present results and future directions are discussed.

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