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The Discriminative Stimulus Properties of Hallucinogenic and Dissociative Anesthetic Drugs

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Book cover The Behavioral Neuroscience of Drug Discrimination

Part of the book series: Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences ((CTBN,volume 39))

Abstract

The subjective effects of drugs are related to the kinds of feelings they produce, such as euphoria or dysphoria. One of the methods that can be used to study these effects is the drug discrimination procedure. Many researchers have been trying to elucidate the mechanisms that underlie the discriminative stimulus properties of abused drugs (e.g., alcohol, psychostimulants, and opioids). Over the past two decades, patterns of drug abuse have changed, so that club/recreational drugs such as phencyclidine (PCP), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), ketamine, and cannabinoid, which induce perceptual distortions, like hallucinations, are now more commonly abused, especially in younger generations. In particular, the abuse of designer drugs, which aim to mimic the subjective effects of psychostimulants (e.g., MDMA or amphetamines), has been problematic. However, the mechanisms of the discriminative stimulus effects of hallucinogenic and dissociative anesthetic drugs are not yet fully clear. This chapter focuses on recent findings regarding hallucinogenic and dissociative anesthetic drug-induced discriminative stimulus properties in animals.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported in part by grants for Research on Regulatory Science of Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (MHLW) to TS and/or TM, and by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 15 K07977.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Toxicology, Hoshi University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hoshi, Japan

    Tomohisa Mori & Tsutomu Suzuki

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  1. Tomohisa Mori
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  2. Tsutomu Suzuki
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Correspondence to Tsutomu Suzuki .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Joseph H. Porter

  2. Department of Psychological Science, Northern Michigan University, Marquette, MI, USA

    Adam J. Prus

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Mori, T., Suzuki, T. (2016). The Discriminative Stimulus Properties of Hallucinogenic and Dissociative Anesthetic Drugs. In: Porter, J.H., Prus, A.J. (eds) The Behavioral Neuroscience of Drug Discrimination. Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences, vol 39. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2016_29

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