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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Sep 30.
Published in final edited form as: Behav Brain Res. 2011 May 7;223(1):227–232. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2011.04.045

Fig. 2. Effects of combined pergolide/ondansetron, pergolide/ketanserin and pergolide/mirtazapine treatment on established behavioral sensitization.

Fig. 2

Cumulative locomotor data are of a “ratio-scale” data type, and, therefore, were analyzed using parametric one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post-hoc Newman-Keul’s test. The behavioral rating scores, on the other hand, are of a “ordinal-scale” type, and were analyzed with non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test, followed by Dunn’s pair-wise test.

A) Locomotor activity data for pergolide/ketanserin and pergolide/ondansetron treatments: METH-pretreated rats given DMSO/saline treatment (M-D/S) showed significantly higher locomotor levels than S-D/S (*, p < 0.008) and S-P/K (*, p < 0.015) groups. Treatment with combined pergolide/ondansetron (M-P/O) or pergolide/ketanserin (M-P/K) reversed locomotor sensitization (*, p < 0.001 and p < 0.003, respectively). Pergolide monotherapy (M-P/S) group was not significantly different from either the sensitized M-D/S or any other experimental groups. S-P/S and S-P/O groups tended to show increases in locomotion compared to S-D/S group, and were not different from the sensitized M-D/S group. Data presented as means ± SEM. Number of animals: S-D/S (15), S-P/S (21), S-P/O (13), S-P/K (10), M-D/S (27), M-P/S (26), M-P/O (17) and M-P/K (15).

B) Behavioral Ratings for pergolide/ketanserin and pergolide/ondansetron treatments: METH pretreated rats given DMSO/saline treatment (M-D/S) exhibited significantly higher scores than those in the saline-pretreated groups (S-D/S, S-P/S, S-P/O and S-P/K; *p < 0.01 - 0.05, Dunn’s test). Pergolide/ondansetron (M-P/O) or pergolide/ketanserin (M-P/K) treatment reversed locomotor sensitization (*p < 0.01 for both comparisons vs. M-D/S group). In contrast, M-P/S group was statistically indistinguishable from the sensitized M-D/S group and exhibited higher behavioral rating scores than M-P/K group (#, p < 0.01). Data presented as medians with range from 25–75%. Number of animals: S-D/S (17), S-P/S (21), S-P/O (16), S-P/K (10), M-D/S (27), M-P/S (26), M-P/O (19) and M-P/K (15).

C) Locomotor activity data for pergolide/mirtazapine treatment: Newman-Keul’s test revealed that all three MPED-pretreated groups (M-D/S, M-D/m, and M-P/m) had higher activity levels than the S-D/S, S-D/m and S-P/m groups with no differences among the three saline or METH pretreated groups (*p < 0.05 for all indicated comparisons). Data presented as means ±SEM. Number of animals: S-D/S (10), S-D/m (9), S-P/m (9), D-D/S (12), M-D/m (10) and M-P/m (12).

D) Behavioral Ratings for pergolide/mirtazapine treatment: M-D/S animals were significantly different from S-D/S, S-D/m and S-P/m animals (*p < 0.05) but not from M-D/m or M-P/m animals. The M-D/M and M-P/m group were also not different from any of the three saline-pretreated groups. Data presented as medians with range from 25–75%. Number of animals: S-D/S (10), S-D/m (10), S-P/m (10), D-D/S (12), M-D/m (10) and M-P/m (12).