Bupropion effects on sign- and goal-tracking.

Winona, Minnesota

In classical conditioning, sign-tracking is a near ubiquitous tendency of organisms to approach/contact of a conditioned stimulus (CS) signal for an appetitive unconditioned stimulus (US), whereas goal-tracking is the approach/contact of the location where the unconditioned stimulus is to be delivered. In a previous study, we hypothesized that amphetamine administration would increase sign-tracking and decrease goal tracking, but instead amphetamine administration decreased sign tracking and increased goal tracking. We performed this study on to see if the antidepressant bupropion (which has similar effects) would decrease sign-tracking in a similar way. With this we predicted that the sign-tracking would decrease, and goal tracking will increase under bupropion. Across a number of measures, we found that bupropion administration decreased sign-tracking and increased goal-tracking in a manner similar to amphetamine. In future studies we hope to explain the paradox of why administration of a dopminergic drug seems to reduce sign-tracking (a dopminergically-driven behavior) so dramatically