Possible Interaction: Amphetamine and Corticosterone

“In previously defeated rats, corticosterone and medial prefrontal cortex dopamine responses to amphetamine were blunted while dopamine responses in the nucleus accumbens core were elevated.”

“Our findings demonstrate for the first time that amphetamine withdrawal potentiates stress-induced corticosterone in the ventral hippocampus, which may contribute to increased behavioral stress sensitivity previously observed during amphetamine withdrawal.”

“These findings suggest that anxiety behavior, plasma corticosterone and limbic monoamines concentrations are altered by repeated amphetamine (2.5 mg/kg) treatment, and that these neuroendocrine and behavioral changes are often associated with sensitization to the psychostimulant effects of amphetamine.”

“Several recent studies have implicated the stress hormone corticosterone in modulating the rewarding properties of abused drugs, including amphetamine and ethanol.”

“Chronic CCS treatment did not significantly alter initial responsiveness to amphetamine in either sham-operated or ADX animals, but it did alter the dose-dependent sensitization to amphetamine.”

“ Amphetamine , a neural stimulatory agent with acute effects mimicking those of stress, is shown here to elevate plasma corticosterone levels and suppress spleen and peripheral blood lymphocyte (PBL) mitogenic responses to concanavalin A (Con A) and phytohemagglutinin (PHA) when administered to rats.”

“We found that repeated corticosterone administration (both 1.5 mg/kg, intraperitoneally and 50 micrograms/ml in drinking water, once per day for 15 days) increased the locomotor response to amphetamine (1.15 mg/kg, i.p.).”

“ AMPH (0.5-5.0 mg/kg) produced a dose-dependent increase in plasma corticosterone.”

“The major findings of this study are that AMPH treatment after the long-term withdrawal from previous random AMPH exposure, accelerates the drug-induced immunosuppressive and systemic corticosterone responses, suggesting prolonged immunosuppressive effects and an increase in incidence of infectious diseases.”