Human d-amphetamine drug discrimination: methamphetamine and hydromorphone.
Pair drug-discrimination choices with a short rating scale to see both control and user perception.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Adults without disabilities took part in a lab test. They learned to tell d-amphetamine from placebo.
Later they tried three pills: d-amphetamine, methamphetamine, and hydromorphone. After each pill they pressed the key that matched what they felt. They also rated if the pill felt like speed.
What they found
Methamphetamine and d-amphetamine made people press the drug key more often. Higher doses made the choice almost perfect. People also wrote speed on their card.
Hydromorphone did not push the drug key. People rarely called it speed. The two measures, choice and words, told the same story.
How this fits with other research
Li et al. (2005) later trained pigeons to pick among four keys for four drug mixes. The birds scored over 90% right, showing the same idea works with more choices and a different species.
Danitz et al. (2014) switched the task to quail and used Pavlovian cues. Cocaine felt like meth to the birds, echoing the human finding that similar stimulants share a cue.
Griffith et al. (2012) asked people to pick GHB or placebo for cash. They chose drug 96% of the time, proving the lab can measure both stimulus control and drug liking.
Why it matters
You can copy the two-part check in any med assessment. First, have the client sort unknown samples like they did here. Second, add a quick rating scale. When both point the same way, you know the drug is working and the client feels it. Try it next time you test a new compound or check for diversion.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Standard measures of subjective and discriminative effects of drugs were compared in 5 human volunteers. Subjects responded on a second-order color-tracking procedure, where 30 mg of d-amphetamine served as a discriminative stimulus for one response and its absence as the discriminative stimulus for another response. Self-reported subjective effects were assessed concurrently using the single-dose questionnaire, subscales of the Addiction Research Center Inventory, and several analogue rating scales. On different days following discrimination acquisition, varying doses of d-amphetamine, methamphetamine, and hydromorphone were administered. In these test sessions, either response was reinforced. Methamphetamine and d-amphetamine occasioned dose-related increases in d-amphetamine appropriate responding; hydromorphone did not. Methamphetamine and d-amphetamine occasioned dose-related increases in reports of the drug received being most like "speed"; hydromorphone occasioned dose-related increases in reports of the drug received being most like "dope." All three drugs occasioned dose-related increases in reports of drug liking, and increases in the morphine-benzedrine group, amphetamine, and benzedrine group scales of the Addiction Research Center Inventory. This experiment demonstrated that although explicit discriminative control of behavior by a drug may covary with drug identification, it does not necessarily covary with other self-reported subjective effects. Thus, the complementary nature of the data provided by drug discrimination and standard subjective-effects measures provides quantitative and qualitative data useful in studying both relatively novel compounds and the behavioral biology of psychoactive drugs in general.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1994 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1994.61-169