Rapid assessment of the dose–response relationship of methamphetamine using the progressive-dosing procedure

This paper describes a new method to rapidly obtain dose–response curves for a drug with rewarding properties using the conditioned place preference protocol. In the usual single-dosing procedure, different animals receive single, varying doses. Thus, a large number of animals are required to generate a curve. A new procedure, known as progressive dosing, alternates increasing drug doses with saline. In this way, the same animal can receive multiple tests. The dose–response curves of the rewarding effect of methamphetamine in mice were obtained using both single-dosing and progressive-dosing procedures. Although the progressive-dosing curves were not identical to the single-dosing curves, they showed a similar pattern. The progressive-dosing procedure was replicated with a new set of mice to confirm the reliability of the method and a dose–response curve similar to the previous one was obtained. This new method can reduce the number of animals required and shorten the duration of the experiment.
Source: Behavioural Pharmacology - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Tags: RESEARCH REPORTS Source Type: research