Discriminative stimulus effects of etorphine in rhesus monkeys

✍ Scribed by Seymore Herling; James H. Woods

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1981
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 309 KB
• Volume: 72
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0033-3158
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00431828

✦ Synopsis

Two rhesus monkeys were trained to discriminate the IM injection of etorphine (0.001mg/kg) from saline in a task in which 20 consecutive responses on one of two levers resulted in food delivery. In both monkeys, etorphine (0.0001-0.0018), meperidine (0.1 -1.0 mg/kg), morphine (0.1 -3.2 mg/kg), and codeine (0.3-3.2) produced dose-related increases in the percentage of total session responses that occurred on the etorphine-appropriate lever. In contrast, ethylketazocine, SKF-10047, and pentazocine, at doses up to and including those that suppressed response rates, produced responses primarily on the saline-appropriate lever. Thus, etorphine-like narcotics, including morphine, have discriminative stimulus effects in rhesus monkeys which can be distinguished from those produced by narcotics with nonmorphine-like actions such as ethylketazocine, SKF-10047, and pentazocine.