Abstract
Effects of subcutaneous administration of psychoactive drugs: methamphetamine (0.13-1 mg/kg), chlorpromazine (0.5-2 mg/kg), physostigmine (0.05-0.2 mg/kg), scopolamine (0.031-0.5 mg/kg), pentobarbital (5-20 mg/kg), diazepam (0.5-2 mg/kg) and morphine (1.3-5 mg/kg) on discrete lever-press and shuttle avoidance responses were investigated in Mongolian gerbils that had received a brief (5 min) bilateral brain ischemic operation. Although some of the ischemic animals tended to show a retardation of acquisition of the avoidance responses, the established baselines were almost identical between the sham-operated and ischemic groups. In the lever-press task, morphine increased the response rate, whereas chlorpromazine, physostigmine, pentobarbital and diazepam decreased both the response and avoidance rates in a dose-dependent manner. In the shuttle avoidance task, both the response and avoidance rates were dose-dependently increased by methamphetamine, scopolamine and morphine, but chlorpromazine, physostigmine, pentobarbital and diazepam dose-dependently decreased them. These drug effects were almost the same between the sham-operated and ischemic groups. However, the ischemic-operation produced a significant loss of pyramidal cells in the CA1 sector of the hippocampus, the remaining level being less than 10% that of the sham-operated control animals.
