The potential utility of Ca2+ channel blockers in the treatment of various psychiatric disorders has been recently suggested. In the present study, the behavioural and anti-psychotic effects of Ca2+ channel blockers were investigated in unrestrained rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) living together in a colony. The different behaviours categorised as social, solitary and abnormal were video recor...

background substance use among college students in iran is a serious problem. determining the pattern of substance use among university students is an important issue for implementing prevention and treatment programs. objectives the present survey attempts to determine the prevalence of substance usage and associated risk factors among the students of jahrom university of medical sciences and ...

post-operative pain and its management remains one of the most important issues in the field of surgery and health care system. on the other hand, opioid drug abuse has a large prevalence in iran. formalin test has been used as a method for assessing pain and analgesia in rats. in the present study, the post-operative pain in morphine addicted rats was compared with that of non-addicted ones us...

BACKGROUND Chronic amphetamine treatment decreases cocaine consumption in preclinical and human laboratory studies and in clinical trials. Lisdexamfetamine is an amphetamine prodrug in which L-lysine is conjugated to the terminal nitrogen of d-amphetamine. Prodrugs may be advantageous relative to their active metabolites due to slower onsets and longer durations of action; however, lisdexamfeta...

M any over-the-counter, or OTC, medicines containing pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, or other sympathomimetic amines interfere with screening tests for amphetamines but do not cause positive test results in the gas chromatography/ mass spectrometric, or GC/MS, confirmation, thus pose no serious challenge in drugs-of-abuse (DOA) testing. In contrast, several prescription medicines containing opioid,...

The nucleus accumbens (NAc) plays a role in conditioned place preference (CPP). The authors tested the hypothesis that inhibition of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) would inhibit NAc-amphetamine-produced CPP. Results confirmed that NAc amphetamine increased levels of the MAPK extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK). In CPP studies, NAc injections (0.5 microl per side) of the ERK i...

Previous research using outbred rats indicates that individual differences in activity in a novel environment predict sensitivity to the reinforcing effect of psychostimulant drugs. The current study examined if the link between responses related to novelty and amphetamine self-administration is heritable. Twelve inbred rat strains were assessed for locomotor activity in a novel environment, pr...

To assess whether calmodulin (CaM) could have a role in the behavioral sensitization induced by repeated intermittent amphetamine, CaM content was determined in several brain areas from rats repeatedly administered saline or amphetamine. Rats were treated with amphetamine using an escalating dose paradigm and withdrawn for either 4 weeks (withdrawn group) or 30 min (non-withdrawn group). CaM co...