Reinforcing Effects of MDMA (‘Ecstasy’) in Drug-Naive and Cocaine-Trained Rats
Pharmacology January 1, 2001 Elisabeth Ratzenboeck, Alois Saria, Norbert Kriechbaum et al. 97 citations
MDMA (ecstasy) is a common illegal drug among European adolescents who are typically inexperienced with hard drugs like cocaine. In rats, the reinforcing effect of intravenously self-administered MDMA did not differ between drug-naive animals and those previously trained with cocaine. MDMA sensitized rats to its own rate-increasing effect but not to that of cocaine. No carryover of cocaine's reinforcing effect to MDMA was observed, indicating that MDMA and cocaine produce distinct interoceptive stimuli in rats.