Question

You are interested in studying the effects of a drug that is known to inhibit learning and memory functioning. You have decided that you will use rats, rather than humans, in your study.

a. Which neurotransmitter is the drug likely affecting and why?

b. Which research method would you use to study this and why would you choose that particular method over another? If this method were unavailable, describe another method you could use and why you would choose this as a second option.

c. You also must determine whether this drug is an agonist or antagonist. What is the difference between them? What will you look for to conclude one way or the other?

Answer 1

A. The drug in the study is most likely affecting the release of the neurotransmitter Acetylcholine thereby leading to failure in learning and breakdown of memory.

B. In the study, the experimental method would be most suitable to establish a causal relationship between drug use and loss of learning and memory as it would allow a greater control over the treatment conditions and help to reduce the effect of intervening variables such as food, extreme climate, dangerous stimuli such as a predator cat, which can affect interfere with the dependent variable such as learning a rout to food in a maze.

However, if the experimental method is not possible for the present study, then the effect of the drug on learning behaviours can be studied using the computational method which would involve feeding the problem in. Computer system and generating a real life solution for it such as by producing scans of the brian of rats for understanding the neurological changes in the Brian with the effect of the drug. Thus, by comparing the PET and MRI scans of the frontal lobes of brains of control rats with the rats who were administered the drug under study, we can find out whether the drug activates or inhibits the center of learning an memory in the frontal cortex in the brain. The neurobiological method would have the added benefit of allowing for a quantitative comparison of the brains of the affected and the unaffected rats and thus help to establish a high validity for the findings.

C. An agonist drug is one which binds to the receptor of the neurons in the brain and thus changes the nature of normal neural activity of the cells. Heroine, morphine and opioids are examples of agonist drugs. Antagonists drugs however are those substances which block the effect of opioids by attaching to the opioid receptors without activating them. Buprenorphine for instance is an antagonist drug which is used to block the effect of opioids in drug rehabilitation programmes and helps to reduce withdrawal symptoms and craving. Based on this differentiation, it appears that the drug in our study in all probability is an antagonist drug as it would prove to have an inhibitory effect on the neural cels responsible for learning and memory. The result would help to find whether the drug reduces learning or facilitates it. If it is the former then it would be an antagonist drug which has inhibitory effects. However, if it is an agonist drug, then it would excite the opioid receptors and which would lead to an increase in learning.