The selective dopamine uptake inhibitor, D-84, suppresses cocaine self-administration, but does not occasion cocaine-like levels of generalization

A successful replacement pharmacotherapy for treating cocaine dependency would likely reduce cocaine's abuse, support a low abuse liability, overlap cocaine's subjective effects, and have a long duration of action. Inhibitors with varying selectivity at the dopamine transporter (DAT) have approximated these properties. The objective of the present study was to characterize the behavioural effects of an extremely selective DAT inhibitor, (+) trans-4-(2-Benzhydryloxyethyl)-1-(4-fluorobenzyl) piperadin-3-ol (D-84), a 3-hydroxy substituted piperidine derivative of GBR-12935, for its cocaine-like discriminative stimulus effects, its effects on cocaine self-administration, and for its own self-administration. During cocaine discrimination tests, cocaine occasioned the 10 mg/kg cocaine training stimulus with an ED50 value of 3.13 (1.54–6.34) mg/kg, and reduced response rates with an ED50 value of 20.39 (7.24–57.44) mg/kg. D-84 incompletely generalized to the cocaine stimulus occasioning a maximal 76% cocaine-lever responding, while reducing response rates with lower potency than cocaine (ED50 = 30.94 (12.34–77.60) mg/kg). Pretreatment with D-84 (9.6–30.4 mg/kg) significantly (P < 0.05) reduced cocaine intake at 17.1 mg/kg D-84 when cocaine was self-administered at 0.5 mg/kg/infusion, and at 30.4 mg/kg D-84 when cocaine was self-administered at 0.1, 0.5 .and 1.0 mg/kg/infusion. During self-administration tests with D-84 (0.1–1 mg/kg/infusion), numbers of infusions significantly exceeded vehicle levels at 0.3 mg/kg/infusion. These results show that D-84 pretreatment can decrease cocaine intake especially when high doses of cocaine are being self-administered. This observation, combined with its incomplete generalization to the cocaine discriminative stimulus and its reported long duration of action, provides a profile consistent with a potential replacement therapy for treating cocaine-abusing patients.