Modafinil reduces amphetamine preference and prevents anxiety-like symptoms during drug withdrawal in young rats: Involvement of dopaminergic targets in VTA and striatum

Publication date: Available online 18 January 2019Source: Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological PsychiatryAuthor(s): Verônica Tironi Dias, Higor Zuquetto Rosa, Lívia Ferraz D'avila, Luciana Taschetto Vey, Raquel Cristine Silva Barcelos, Marilise Escobar BurgerAbstractDrug abuse and addiction are overwhelming health problems mainly during adolescence. Based on a previous study of our research group, the rats that received modafinil (MD) during the adolescence showed less preference for amphetamine (AMPH) in adulthood. Our current hypothesis is that MD will show beneficial effects against AMPH preference and abstinence symptoms during adolescence, a critical lifetime period when drug hedonic effects are more pronounced. We investigated the influence of MD pretreatment on AMPH preference in conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm in adolescent rats and anxiety-like symptoms during drug withdrawal (48 h after the last AMPH dose) in elevated plus maze (EPM) task. Besides that, oxidative and molecular status were evaluated in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and striatum. Our findings showed, as it was expected, that adolescent animals developed AMPH preference together with anxiety-like symptoms during the drug withdrawal while the MD pretreatment prevented those behaviors. Besides promoting benefits on reward parameters, MD was able to preserve VTA and striatum from oxidative damages. This was observed by the increased catalase activity and reduced generatio...
Source: Progress in Neuro Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research