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The Behavioral Pharmacology of Psychomotor Stimulant Drugs

1981; Springer Science+Business Media; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-642-67767-0_15

1865-0325

Charles R. Schuster,

Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior

The purpose of this chapter is to selectively review the behavioral pharmacology of psychomotor stimulant drugs. In this context, psychomotor stimulant drugs are defined as those which produce increased spontaneous motor activity and/or the frequency of occurrence of learned behaviors at doses far below those producing convulsions. An attempt will be made to show the generality of the behavioral effects of this class of compounds. Unfortunately, relatively few behavioral studies have specifically compared more than a few of the psychomotor stimulant drugs. Most studies have used one of the amphetamines with significantly fewer studies investigating and then contrasting the actions of other drugs in this class. For this reason the literature covered in this review will primarily be concerned with amphetamines, but where possible, comparison will be made to other psychomotor stimulant drugs.