This study examined the contributions of different brain areas to several of the behavior effects of amphetamine. The drug was micro-injected into each of six discreet brain sites in rats and the effects on behavior were examined. Amphetamine's rewarding effects were studied using the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Animals that had received injections into the nucleus accumbens showed a CPP, suggesting a rewarding effect of the drug. No effect was produced by injections into the medial frontal cortex, medial or lateral parts of the caudate nucleus, amygdala or the region around the area postrema. A conditioned taste aversion (CTA) towards a flavour that had been paired with the drug was produced by injections into the region around the area postrema, but not from the other sites. Anorexia and adipsia were both producted only by injections into the nucleus accumbens and amygdala. In the open field, increased activity was produced by intra-accumbens amphetamine injections, with smaller effects from the medial frontal cortex and medial caudate. Stereotyped behavior was not produced by any intra-cranial injection. The CPP, anorexia, adipsia and increase in activity that were produced by the intra-accumbens injections were interpreted as suggesting that the drug had stimulated approach behavior towards all stimuli, as if they had all become rewarding. The observation of a CPP from the accumbens and a CTA from the region around the area postrema suggests that the rewarding and apparently aversive effects of systemically injected amphetamine result from actions of the drug on different neuroanatomical substrates. Other hypotheses of the behavioral function of the neural substrates of the observed effects are presented.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.72004 |
| Date | January 1984 |
| Creators | Carr, Geoffrey David. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 000220745, proquestno: AAINL20868, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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