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The Journal of Neuroscience, August 15, 2002, 22(16):7264-7271
Exposure of Adolescent Rats to Oral Methylphenidate: Preferential
Effects on Extracellular Norepinephrine and Absence of Sensitization
and Cross-Sensitization to Methamphetamine
Ronald
Kuczenski and
David S.
Segal
Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of
California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093
Methylphenidate (MP) (ritalin) is widely used in the treatment of
children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,
but little is known about therapeutic mechanisms or about possible
consequences of long-term exposure. To more closely simulate the
clinical use of the drug, we orally administered MP to adolescent rats
during the dark-active phase of the circadian cycle at doses
(0.75-3.0 mg/kg) below threshold for locomotor activation. We found
that doses in this range increased extracellular norepinephrine in
hippocampus without affecting dopamine in nucleus accumbens. These
results suggest that norepinephrine systems may play an important role
in the therapeutic action of this drug. To examine one potential
consequence of long-term exposure to MP, i.e., the development of
locomotor sensitization, an adaptational change that has been
implicated in drug abuse liability, animals received three daily oral
administrations of these doses of MP for up to 4 weeks through
adolescence. The animals were then challenged with methamphetamine (0.5 mg/kg). We found that the behavioral response to MP did not change
during the course of chronic treatment and that MP-pretreated animals
did not exhibit a sensitized locomotor response to the methamphetamine
challenge. We propose that, to the extent that this treatment protocol
more closely reflects clinical exposure patterns, the relative
insensitivity of accumbens dopamine to the acute administration of
these MP doses, and the corresponding absence of evidence for the
development of locomotor sensitization, supports one clinical view that
there is little abuse liability associated with low dose, long-term
MP treatment.
Key words:
amphetamine; methamphetamine; methylphenidate; chronic; dopamine; norepinephrine; attention deficit; adolescent
Copyright © 2002 Society for Neuroscience 0270-6474/02/22167264-08$05.00/0
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