Discriminative stimulus properties of toluene in the rat.

Rats were trained to discriminate toluene (100 mg/kg, IP) from vehicle in a two-lever operant task. Acquisition of the discrimination required a range of 85-219 training days. Injections of either methohexital (0.5-10 mg/kg) or oxazepam (0.5-20 mg/kg) produced toluene-lever responding in a dose-dependent fashion in most animals. The discriminative stimulus properties of toluene were not found to generalize to chlorpromazine (0.3-10 mg/kg). These results are consistent with those obtained in the mouse and provide further evidence that toluene has stimulus properties similar to those of CNS depressant drugs. These results further suggest that toluene may have drug abuse potential of the CNS depressant type.