The discriminative stimulus properties and detection thresholds of intracranial self-stimulation: effects of d-amphetamine, morphine, and haloperidol.

A two-choice discrimination task was used to evaluate the effects of psychoactive drugs on the discriminative stimulus properties of brain self-stimulation in rats. In these experiments, brain stimulation served both as a discriminative stimulus and as a reinforcing stimulus, but the two effects were manipulated separately. Animals were trained to a criterion of 95% correct in choosing between two levers, and when this level of accuracy was reached, the ability to choose correctly remained stable over an 8-month period. Increasing the current strength of the discriminative stimulus from zero to 100% of the training current produced a graded increase in the number of trials completed on the appropriate lever. The discriminative effects produced by brain stimulation were evaluated pharmacologically by using three prototypical psychoactive drugs in an attempt to change the detection threshold for the discriminative stimulus. Morphine, d-amphetamine, and haloperidol, drugs that reliably alter reinforcement thresholds for brain stimulation, failed to change detection thresholds. These results demonstrated that: brain stimulation produces potent and reliable discriminative effects and the effects of psychoactive drugs on detection thresholds can be dissociated from their effects on reinforcement thresholds for brain stimulation.