Heptaminol hydrochloride (hept‐a‐Myl®) facilitates a light‐dark discrimination task in a Y‐maze using electrical self‐stimulation as reinforcement

Abstract

Cazala, P., F. Durantou, and B. Pourrias: Heptaminol hydrochloride (Hept-a-MyP) facilitates a light-dark discrimination task in a Y-maze using electrical self-stimulation as reinforcement. Drug Dev. Res. 23:145-152, 1991.The effects of intraperitoneal injections of heptaminol hydrochloride (hept-a-myP) on a light-dark discrimination task in a Y-maze using intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) in the lateral hypothalamus (LH) as reinforcement were studied in BALB/c mice. At the two doses injected (34.6 and 60 mg/kg) heptaminol facilitated the discrimination between the arm reinforced by LH stimulation and the neutral arm, during the acquisition and reversal phases of the task. However, mice injected with the dose of 34.6 mg/kg performed the best discrimination performance (i.e., made the lowest number of discrimination errors). Moreover, heptaminol greatly decreased the latency to initiate LH stimulation, whereas the latency to terminate it was not modified.These results suggest that heptaminol 1) can be considered as a cognitive enhancing agent which is able to improve the discrimination performance whatever the complexity of the learning task and 2) modulates the activity of certain neuronal mechanisms involved in ICSS regulation.