EMPIRICAL-EVIDENCE THAT THE STATE DEPENDENCE AND DRUG DISCRIMINATION PARADIGMS CAN GENERATE DIFFERENT OUTCOMES

The study compared the outcomes generated by the State Dependence and Drug Discrimination paradigms with ethanol in the rat. Food-deprived r ats learned to complete a fixed-ratio 10 schedule of bar presses for f ood within 120 s while treated with 320- to 1250-mg/kg doses of ethano l. Subsequent tests of recall of this response with saline failed to g enerate any evidence that transfer was hampered following the drug-to- saline state change. In contrast, each of 14 rats learned to discrimin ate 1250 mg/kg ethanol from saline in a Drug Discrimination procedure that also required the animals to press one of two levers for food acc ording to a fixed- ratio 10 schedule. The results offer the first empi rical evidence to demonstrate directly that the State Dependence and D rug Discrimination paradigms can generate different outcomes in otherw ise identical experimental conditions.