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Author Notes:
Correspondence: William E. Fantegrossi, Ph.D., Division of Neuroscience, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, 954 Gatewood Road, Atlanta, GA 30322; Tel: (404) 727-8512; Fax: (404) 727-1266; Email: wfanteg@emory.edu
Acknowledgments: The authors wish to thank the Yerkes Animal Care staff for expert animal husbandry services.
Subjects:
Research Funding:
These studies were funded by US PHS Grants DA19634 (A.C.) and DA020645 (W.E.F.), by the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, and by the Yerkes Base Grant RR-00165.
Keywords:
- MDMA
- drug-discrimination
- head twitch response
- locomotor activity
MDMA-like behavioral effects of N-substituted piperazines in the mouse
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Abstract:
Few studies have characterized the subjective effects of N-substituted piperazines, but these drugs show potential for abuse in humans, and have often been associated with MDMA (“ecstasy”) in this regard. The aim of the present studies was to test the capacity of N-substituted piperazines to induce a head-twitch response, alter locomotor activity, and induce MDMA-like discriminative stimulus effects in mice. Various doses of l-benzylpiperazine (BZP), 1-(3-trifluoromethylphenyl) piperazine (TFMPP), 1-(3-methoxybenzyl) piperazine (m-MeO-BZP) or meta-chlorophenyl piperazine (m-CPP) were administered to mice to determine effects on these behavioral endpoints. BZP, but not its meta-methoxyl analogue, increased locomotor activity in a dose-dependent manner; the phenylpiperazines and m-MeO-BZP only decreased locomotor activity. TFMPP was the only compound active in the head twitch assay, eliciting a moderate head twitch response which was comparable to that previously observed with the MDMA enantiomers. BZP, TFMPP and m-CPP fully substituted in S(+)-MDMA-trained animals, but did not elicit significant drug lever responding in mice trained to discriminate R(−)-MDMA. m-MeO-BZP partially substituted for both training drugs. The present results suggest that BZP has stimulant-like effects, and that TFMPP has hallucinogen-like effects. Their structural analogues, however, do not share these behavioral profiles. Further studies into the relationships between the N-substituted piperazines and MDMA are warranted.
Copyright information:
© 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
This is an Open Access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
