Jeff Burgdorf | Department of Neuroscience, University of Florida
Nakia Gordon | Department of Neuroscience, University of Florida
Cortney Turner | Department of Neuroscience, University of Florida
Aims. Currently, methylphenidate (MPH, trade name Ritalin) is the most widely prescribed medication for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We examined the ability of repeated MPH administration to produce a sensitized appetitive eagerness type response in laboratory rats, as indexed by 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (50-kHz USVs). We also examined the ability of MPH to reduce play behavior in rats which may be partially implicated in the clinical efficacy of MPH in ADHD. Design. 56 adolescent rats received injections of either 5.0 mg/kg MPH, or vehicle each day for 8 consecutive days, and a week later received a challenge injection of either MPH or vehicle. Measurements. Both play behavior (pins) and 50-kHz USVs were recorded after each drug or vehicle administration. Results. MPH challenge produced a substantial 73% reduction in play behavior during the initial treatment phase, and during the last test (1 week post drug), 50-kHz USVs were elevated approximately threefold only in animals with previous MPH experience. Conclusions. These data suggest that MPH treatment may lead to psychostimulant sensitization in young animals, perhaps by increasing future drug-seeking tendencies due to an elevated eagerness for positive incentives. Further, we hypothesize that MPH may be reducing ADHD symptoms, in part, by blocking playful tendencies, whose neuro-maturational and psychological functions remain to be adequately characterized.
Davis, Kenneth L., Jaak Panksepp & Larry Normansell
2003. The Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales: Normative Data and Implications. Neuropsychoanalysis 5:1 ► pp. 57 ff.
Mu, Ping, Thomas Fuchs, Daniel B. Saal, Barbara A. Sorg, Yan Dong & Jaak Panksepp
2009. Repeated cocaine exposure induces sensitization of ultrasonic vocalization in rats. Neuroscience Letters 453:1 ► pp. 31 ff.
Panksepp, Jaak
2003. Commentary on “Understanding Addictive Vulnerability”. Neuropsychoanalysis 5:1 ► pp. 21 ff.
Panksepp, Jaak
2007. Neuroevolutionary sources of laughter and social joy: Modeling primal human laughter in laboratory rats. Behavioural Brain Research 182:2 ► pp. 231 ff.
Panksepp, Jaak
2010. The Basic Affective Circuits of Mammalian Brains: Implications for Healthy Human Development and the Cultural Landscapes of ADHD. In Formative Experiences, ► pp. 470 ff.
Panksepp, Jaak
2011. Toward a cross‐species neuroscientific understanding of the affective mind: do animals have emotional feelings?. American Journal of Primatology 73:6 ► pp. 545 ff.
Panksepp, Jaak & Jeff Burgdorf
2003. “Laughing” rats and the evolutionary antecedents of human joy?. Physiology & Behavior 79:3 ► pp. 533 ff.
Panksepp, Jaak, Andrea Clarici, Marie Vandekerckhove & Yoram Yovell
2019. Neuro-Evolutionary Foundations of Infant Minds: From Psychoanalytic Visions of How Primal Emotions Guide Constructions of Human Minds toward Affective Neuroscientific Understanding of Emotions and Their Disorders. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 39:1 ► pp. 36 ff.
Panksepp, Jaak & Jason S. Wright
2012. Response to Commentaries. Neuropsychoanalysis 14:1 ► pp. 59 ff.
Simola, Nicola
2018. Effects of Psychostimulants on Rat Emotional States and Emission of Ultrasonic Vocalizations. In Handbook of Ultrasonic Vocalization - A Window into the Emotional Brain [Handbook of Behavioral Neuroscience, 25], ► pp. 281 ff.
Siviy, Stephen M. & Jaak Panksepp
2011. In search of the neurobiological substrates for social playfulness in mammalian brains. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 35:9 ► pp. 1821 ff.
Worthman, Carol M.
2010. FEAR, FUN, AND THE BOUNDARIES OF SOCIAL EXPERIENCE. In Formative Experiences, ► pp. 375 ff.
[no author supplied]
2009. Trialogue: commentaries on “Are mental illnesses disorders of consciousness?”. In The Neuropsychology of Mental Illness, ► pp. 414 ff.
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