Cocaine--Physiological effect

The effects of cocaine exposure and maternal deprivation on subsequent voluntary ingestion of cocaine and amphetamine was investigated in 7-day-old rat pups in order to further our understanding on the development of drug addiction. Maternally deprived and non-deprived pups were pre-exposed to a cocaine solution masked with 5% orange Tang solution. Four hours later, experimental pups were tested for subsequent cocaine self-administration (SA) (Exp. 1) or amphetamine SA, (Exp. 2), following a second deprivation period. Control pups were not deprived during this interval. Pups in both experiments were assessed for dose self-administered and for general activity. Results indicate that cocaine pre-exposure increased cocaine and amphetamine SA, and activity significantly increased after pre-exposure and testing sessions. Lastly, sensitization of the motor effects of cocaine was observed in pups pre-exposed to cocaine. This study provides a potential drug SA animal model not yet investigated in developing animals.

Cocaine use during pregnancy has been associated with neurobehavioral and cognitive difficulties in infants and toddlers. The present study used an elicited imitation procedure to investigate memory for sex-typed event sequences in preschool children. Measures of immediate and delayed recall was assessed in three groups of children: drug-exposed, at-risk, and not-at-risk. Results indicated that (1) drug-exposed males showed no evidence of demasculinization and/or feminization, (2) drug-exposed children, in general, did not recall a fewer number of different target acts or fewer actions in the correct order than the at-risk or not-at-risk children, and (3) drug-exposed and at-risk children exhibited a greater number of repetition errors and novel errors than not-at-risk children. Findings suggest that certain effects of prenatal drug exposure are still evident in children of preschool age.