User:Nervous neuron/Drug discrimination

Drug discrimination is an assay that is used mainly in animal studies. Effects of drugs serve as discriminative stimuli that indicate how reinforcers (e.g. food pellets) can be obtained. For example, animals can be trained to press one of two levers to obtain food after receiving injections of a drug, and to press the other lever to obtain food after injections of the vehicle. After the discrimination has been learned, the animal starts pressing the appropriate lever according to whether it has received the training drug or vehicle; accuracy is very good in most experiments (90% or more correct). Discriminative stimulus effects of drugs are readily distinguished from the effects of food alone by collecting data in brief test sessions where responses are not differentially reinforced. Thus, trained subjects can be used to determine whether test substances are identified as like or unlike the drug used for training.

Drug Discrimination

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