Discriminative stimulus properties of ethosuximide in the pigeon

Abstract

After initial exposure to 80 mg/kg, pigeons trained on a two-key drug discrimination procedure rapidly learned to discriminate 120 mg/kg ethosuximide from saline. When 40–160 mg/kg doses of ethosuximide were administered during generalization tests, the percentage of responses directed to the ethosuximide-appropriate key varied directly with dose. Time-effect determinations revealed that the discriminable properties of ethosuximide were evident as early as 15 min after, and as late as 2 h after, intramuscular injection. The discriminative stimulus properties of ethosuximide failed to generalize to the anticonvulsant compounds clonazepam (0.5–4 mg/kg), methsuximide (25–200 mg/kg), and phenytoin (5–15 mg/kg). Generalization was apparent with certain doses of primidone (250, 300 mg/kg) and mephenytoin (80, 160, 240 mg/kg). The concomitant administration of pentylenetetrazol (5, 10, 20 mg/kg) partially blocked the discriminable properties of the training dose of ethosuximide.