Conditioned Taste Avoidance Drug Discrimination Procedure: Assessments and Applications.

In the present chapter, we summarize much of the work on the taste avoidance drug discrimination procedure, presenting the logic for its initial introduction and the extension of the procedure in the investigation of the discriminative properties of various drugs. Results from these assessments parallel those from more traditional operant and maze designs in classifying and characterizing the discriminative properties of drug. At the same time, this design reveals a procedure that is sensitive in such assessments by indexing these stimulus properties more rapidly and at lower doses than in the more traditional procedures (in some cases for drugs heretofore resistant in their detection).

Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) history fails to affect THC's ability to induce place preferences in rats.

Rationale: In pre-clinical models of marijuana abuse, there is relatively limited evidence of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol's (THC) rewarding effects, as indexed by its general inability to induce a place preference. One explanation for this failure is that its rewarding effects are masked by its concurrently occurring aversive properties. Consistent with this explanation, THC pre-exposure, which presumably weakens its aversive effects, induces place preferences.