Drug discrimination explained

Drug discrimination (DD) is a technique in behavioral neuroscience used to evaluate the discriminative stimulus properties of psychoactive drugs.^{[1] [2] [3] [4]} The discriminative stimulus properties of drugs are believed to reflect their subjective effects. When partial or full stimulus generalization of a test drug to a training drug occurs, the test drug can be assumed to have effects that are subjectively similar to those of the training drug. Drug discrimination tests are usually performed in animals, but have also been conducted in humans.^{[5] [6]} Drug discrimination assays have been employed to assess whether drugs have hallucinogen- or entactogen-like effects, among many other types of drug effects.^{[7] [8] [9]}

Further reading

• Book: Glennon . R.A. . Young . R. . Drug Discrimination: Applications to Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Studies . Wiley . 2011 . 978-0-470-43352-2 . 2 November 2024 . 17.

Notes and References

1. Porter JH, Prus AJ, Overton DA . Drug Discrimination: Historical Origins, Important Concepts, and Principles . Curr Top Behav Neurosci . Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences . 39 . 3–26 . 2018 . 29637526 . 10.1007/7854_2018_40 . 978-3-319-98559-6 .
2. Book: Young, Richard . Drug Discrimination . Methods of Behavior Analysis in Neuroscience . Boca Raton (FL) . CRC Press/Taylor & Francis . 2009 . 21204332 . 978-1-4200-5234-3 . 1 November 2024.
3. Colpaert FC . Drug discrimination in neurobiology . Pharmacol Biochem Behav . 64 . 2 . 337–345 . October 1999 . 10515310 . 10.1016/s0091-3057(99)00047-7 .
4. Book: Stolerman, I.P. . Techniques in the Behavioral and Neural Sciences . Drug discrimination . Elsevier . 1993 . 10 . 0921-0709 . 10.1016/b978-0-444-81444-9.50014-6 . 217–243. 978-0-444-81444-9 .
5. Bolin BL, Alcorn JL, Reynolds AR, Lile JA, Rush CR . Human drug discrimination: A primer and methodological review . Exp Clin Psychopharmacol . 24 . 4 . 214–228 . August 2016 . 27454673 . 4965187 . 10.1037/pha0000077 .
6. Bolin BL, Alcorn JL, Reynolds AR, Lile JA, Stoops WW, Rush CR . Human Drug Discrimination: Elucidating the Neuropharmacology of Commonly Abused Illicit Drugs . Curr Top Behav Neurosci . Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences . 39 . 261–295 . 2018 . 27272070 . 5461212 . 10.1007/7854_2016_10 . 978-3-319-98559-6 .
7. Baker LE . Hallucinogens in Drug Discrimination . Curr Top Behav Neurosci . Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences . 36 . 201–219 . 2018 . 28484970 . 10.1007/7854_2017_476 . 978-3-662-55878-2 .
8. Winter JC . Hallucinogens as discriminative stimuli in animals: LSD, phenethylamines, and tryptamines . Psychopharmacology (Berl) . 203 . 2 . 251–263 . April 2009 . 18979087 . 10.1007/s00213-008-1356-8 .
9. Mori T, Suzuki T . The Discriminative Stimulus Properties of Hallucinogenic and Dissociative Anesthetic Drugs . Curr Top Behav Neurosci . Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences . 39 . 141–152 . 2018 . 27586539 . 10.1007/7854_2016_29 . free . 978-3-319-98559-6 .