Full metadata
Title
Methamphetamine and novel "legal high" methamphetamine mimetics: abuse liability, toxicity, and potential pharmacobehavioral treatments
Description
Globally, addiction to stimulants such as methamphetamine (METH) remains a significant public health problem. Despite decades of research, no approved anti-relapse medications for METH or any illicit stimulant exist, and current treatment approaches suffer from high relapse rates. Recently, synthetic cathinones have also emerged as popular abused stimulants, leading to numerous incidences of toxicity and death. However, contrary to traditional illicit stimulants, very little is known about their addiction potential. Given the high relapse rates and lack of approved medications for METH addiction, chapters 2 and 3 of this dissertation assessed three different glutamate receptor ligands as potential anti-relapse medications following METH intravenous self-administration (IVSA) in rats. In chapters 4 through 7, using both IVSA and intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) procedures, experiments assessed abuse liability of the popular synthetic cathinones 3,4-Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) , methylone, α-pyrrolidinovalerophenone (α-PVP) and 4-methylethylcathinone (4-MEC). Results from these seminal studies suggest that these drugs possess similar abuse potential to traditional illicit stimulants such as METH, cocaine, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). Finally, studies outlined in chapter 8 assessed the potential neurotoxic or adverse cognitive effects of METH and MDPV following IVSA procedures for the purpose of identifying potential novel pharmacotherapeutic targets. However, results of these final studies did not reveal neurotoxic or adverse cognitive effects when using similar IVSA procedural parameters that were sufficient for establishing addiction potential, suggesting that these parameters do not allow for sufficient drug intake to produce similar neurotoxicity or cognitive deficits reported in humans. Thus, these models may be inadequate for fully modeling the adverse neural and psychological consequences of stimulant addiction. Together, these studies support the notion for continued research into the abuse liability and toxicity of METH and synthetic cathinones and suggest that refinements to traditional IVSA models are needed for both more effective assessment of potential cognitive and neural deficits induced by these drugs and screening of potentially clinically efficacious pharmacotherapeutics.
Date Created
2014
Contributors
- Watterson, Lucas (Author)
- Olive, Michael F (Thesis advisor)
- Czyzyk, Traci (Committee member)
- Neisewander, Janet (Committee member)
- Sanabria, Federico (Committee member)
- Arizona State University (Publisher)
Topical Subject
- Behavioral Sciences
- Psychobiology
- psychology
- "Bath Salts"
- Intravenous Self-administration
- MDPV
- Methamphetamine
- Methylone
- Synthetic Cathinones
- Drug Abuse
- Methamphetamine--Toxicology.
- Methamphetamine
- Psychotropic drugs--Toxicology.
- Psychotropic drugs
- Designer drugs--Toxicology.
- Designer Drugs
- Synthetic drugs--Toxicology.
- Synthetic Drugs
Resource Type
Extent
xvi, 285 p. : ill
Language
eng
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Peer-reviewed
No
Open Access
No
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.27393
Statement of Responsibility
by Lucas Watterson
Description Source
Viewed on February 24, 2015
Level of coding
full
Note
thesis
Partial requirement for: Ph. D., Arizona State University, 2014
bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (p. 168-201)
Field of study: Psychology
System Created
- 2015-02-01 07:01:02
System Modified
- 2021-08-30 01:31:42
- 3 years 2 months ago
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