Amphetamine-Induced Sensitization Has Little Effect on Multiple Learning Paradigms and Fails to Rescue Mice with a Striatal Learning Defect

Behavioral sensitization to psychostimulants such as amphetamine (AMPH) is associated with synaptic modifications that are thought to underlie learning and memory. Because AMPH enhances extracellular dopamine in the striatum where dopamine and glutamate signaling are essential for learning, one might expect that the molecular and morphological changes that occur in the striatum in response to AMPH, including changes in synaptic plasticity, would affect learning. To ascertain whether AMPH sensitization affects learning, we tested wild-type mice and mice lacking NMDA receptor signaling in striatal medium spiny neurons in several different learning tests (motor learning, Pavlovian association, U-maze escape test with strategy shifting) with or without prior sensitization to AMPH. Prior sensitization had minimal effect on learning in any of these paradigms in wild-type mice and failed to restore learning in mutant mice, despite the fact that the mutant mice became sensitized by the AMPH treatment. We conclude that the changes in synaptic plasticity and many other signaling events that occur in response to AMPH sensitization are dissociable from those involved in learning the tasks used in our experiments.