Latent inhibition is unaffected by direct dopamine agonists

Latent inhibition (LI) refers to the finding that nonreinforced preexposure to a stimulus retards subsequent conditioning to that stimulus when it is paired with reinforcement. The development of LI reflects a process of learning not to attend, or ignore, irrelevant stimuli. Previous experiments showed that LI was disrupted by low but not high doses of amphetamine, and facilitated by neuroleptic drugs. The present experiments sought to investigate the role of dopamine D1 and D2 receptors in LI disruption. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the selective D1 agonist, SKF-38393 (1, 5, 10 mg/kg) and the selective D2 agonist, quinpirole (0.1, 0.3, 1.0 mg/kg), did not affect LI. Experiment 3 showed that both low (0.3 mg/kg) and high (1.5 mg/kg) doses of the mixed D1-D2 agonist, apomorphine, failed to affect LI. These results show that LI is not disrupted by direct stimulation of DA receptors and suggest that the differential effect exerted on this phenomenon by apomorphine (and possibly SKF-38393 and quinpirole) and amphetamine is related to the direct versus the indirect agonist action of these drugs. In addition, apomorphine at the dose of 0.03 mg/kg, which is believed to activate preferentially DA autoreceptors, did not produce neuroleptic-like facilitation of LI. The implications of the results for the involvement of DA mechanisms in LI are discussed.