Popular “Bath Salt” Hooks Lab Rats

Mephedrone shows addictive properties in animal models. Cathinones, like methedrine and other stimulants, are primarily dopamine-active drugs. Though they are now illegal in the U.S., they were formerly of primary interest only to pharmaceutical researchers. The best-known cathinone sold in the form of bath salts and plant food—mephedrone—has both dopamine and serotonin effects. It broke big in the UK a few years ago as a “legal” party drug alternative to MDMA. The idea was to get high without testing dirty, as the saying goes. Behavioral clues about mephedrone have been teased out of rat studies. The Taffe Laboratory at Scripps Research Institute has been focusing on the cognitive, thermoregulatory, and potentially addictive effects of the cathinones, and mephedrone in particular. Scripps researchers have carried the investigation forward with a recent study in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Now comes additional evidence, also from the Taffe Lab at Scripps, that mephedrone, or 4-MMC, looks like an addictive drug. In a paper accepted for publication by Addiction Biology, which Addiction Inbox was allowed to review in advance, Dr. Michael Taffe, along with lead author S.M. Aarde and coworkers, demonstrated in an animal study that lab rats will intravenously self-administer mephedrone under normal lab conditions—roughly analogous to shooting speed. Without suitable strains of test animals, most genetic and neurobiological research would take centuries...
Source: Addiction Inbox - Category: Addiction Authors: Source Type: blogs