Afonso Veronica M, Mueller Devin, Stewart Jane, Pfaus James G
Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology, Department of Psychology, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, Montréal, QC, Canada.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2009 Jul;205(1):35-43. doi: 10.1007/s00213-009-1511-x. Epub 2009 Mar 13.
Intermittent treatment of rats with psychomotor stimulants induces behavioral sensitization to their motor-stimulating effects. This sensitization involves an increase in mesolimbic and nigrostriatal dopamine release, and in male rats, facilitates sexual behavior.
The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of repeated injections of D-amphetamine on appetitive and consummatory sexual behaviors in female rats.
Sexually experienced or naïve females were injected with either D-amphetamine (1 mg/kg, i.p.) or saline every other day for three injections each. After each amphetamine injection, females were placed either in a bilevel testing chamber or in their home cages. After saline injections, females were placed in bilevel chambers. Following a 3-week washout period, females were tested for sexual behavior in bilevel chambers in a drug-free state.
Amphetamine pre-exposure facilitated the display of solicitations, hops and darts, and female-male mounting (FMM), regardless of whether the drug was paired with the testing environment.
Intermittent amphetamine pretreatment that induces behavioral sensitization facilitates appetitive sexual behaviors in female rats, as has been shown previously in male rats. This suggests that the physiological substrates that modulate sensitized responses to psychomotor stimulants also mediate sensitized appetitive responses to sexual cues, including solicitation, hops and darts, and FMM. As in male rats, this facilitation was a direct consequence of amphetamine sensitization and not due to conditioned associations between drug and test environment.
用精神运动兴奋剂间歇性治疗大鼠会使其对这些药物的运动刺激作用产生行为敏化。这种敏化涉及中脑边缘和黑质纹状体多巴胺释放增加，并且在雄性大鼠中会促进性行为。
本研究旨在调查重复注射D-苯丙胺对雌性大鼠的求偶和性行为的影响。
性经验丰富或未接触过性的雌性大鼠每隔一天注射D-苯丙胺（1mg/kg，腹腔注射）或生理盐水，各注射三次。每次注射苯丙胺后，将雌性大鼠置于双层测试箱或其饲养笼中。注射生理盐水后，将雌性大鼠置于双层测试箱中。经过3周的洗脱期后，在无药物状态下于双层测试箱中对雌性大鼠进行性行为测试。
无论药物是否与测试环境配对，预先接触苯丙胺均促进了求偶行为、跳跃和冲刺行为以及雌雄交配行为（FMM）的表现。
如先前在雄性大鼠中所显示的那样，诱导行为敏化的间歇性苯丙胺预处理促进了雌性大鼠的求偶性行为。这表明调节对精神运动兴奋剂的敏化反应的生理底物也介导了对性线索的敏化求偶反应，包括求偶行为、跳跃和冲刺行为以及雌雄交配行为。与雄性大鼠一样，这种促进作用是苯丙胺敏化的直接结果，而非药物与测试环境之间的条件性关联所致。
