Clinical Neuropharmacology of Drugs of Abuse: A Comparison of Drug-Discrimination and Subject-Report Measures

Abstract

Advances in molecular pharmacology and behavioral science have helped elucidate the structure and function of the central nervous system and its relationship to behavior and has sparked the development of pharmacological agents that have increasingly selective and potent effects with fewer adverse side effects. The sensitivity and predictive validity of the two most commonly used methodologies for assessing the neuropharmacological effects of centrally active drugs, subject report of drug effects and drug discrimination, were examined. The sensitivity of the measures was comparable across stimulant, sedative, and opioid drugs. Results with drug-discrimination methodologies were generally consistent with hypothesized neuropharmacological mechanisms across all drug classes, whereas subject reports conformed under more limited testing conditions. Firm conclusions regarding the relative utility of drug-discrimination and subjectreport measures for clinical studies of neuropharmacological mechanisms are limited by the small number of studies in which the two methodologies have been tested using identical pharmacological pretreatment manipulations.