Varying the rate of intravenous cocaine infusion influences the temporal dynamics of both drug and dopamine concentrations in the striatum.

ABSTRACT: The faster drugs of abuse reach the brain, the greater is the risk of addiction. Even small differences in the rate of drug delivery can influence outcome. Infusing cocaine intravenously over 5 vs. 90-100 s promotes sensitization to the psychomotor and incentive motivational effects of the drug and preferentially recruits mesocorticolimbic regions. It remains unclear whether these effects are due to differences in how fast and/or how much drug reaches the brain. Here, we predicted that varying the rate of intravenous cocaine infusion between 5 and 90 s produces different rates of rise of brain drug concentrations, while producing similar peak concentrations. Freely moving male Wistar rats received acute intravenous cocaine infusions (2.0 mg/kg/infusion) over 5, 45 and 90 s. We measured coc

SUBMITTER: Minogianis EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6296906 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature