Oral dosing of rodents using a palatable tablet
Abstract
Rationale: Delivering orally bioavailable drugs to rodents is an important component to investigating that route of administration in novel treatments for humans. However, the traditional method of oral gavage requires training, is stressful, and can induce oesophageal damage in rodents. Objectives: To demonstrate a novel administrative technique – palatable gelatine tablets – as a stress-free route of oral delivery. Methods: 24 male Lister hooded rats were sacrificed for brain tissue analysis at varying time-points after jelly administration of 30 mg/kg of the wake-promoting drug modafinil. A second group of 22 female rats were tested on locomotor activity after 30 mg/kg modafinil, or after vehicle jellies, with the locomotor data compared to the brain tissue concentrations at the corresponding times. Results: Modafinil was present in the brain tissue at all time-points, reducing in concentration over time. The pattern of brain tissue modafinil concentration is comparable to previously reported results following oral gavage. Modafinil-treated rats were more active than control rats, with greater activity during the later time-periods – similar to that previously reported following intraperitoneal injection of 40 mg/kg modafinil. Conclusions: Palatable jelly tablets are an effective route of administration of thermally-stable orally-bioavailable compounds, eliminating the stress/discomfort and health risk of oral gavage and presenting as an alternative to previously reported palatable routes of administration where high protein and fat levels may adversely affect appetite for food reward, and uptake rate in the gastrointestinal tract.
Citation
Dhawan , S S , Xia , S , Tait , D S , Bundgaard , C , Bowman , E & Brown , V J 2018 , ' Oral dosing of rodents using a palatable tablet ' , Psychopharmacology , vol. 235 , no. 5 , pp. 1527-1532 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-018-4863-2
Publication
Psychopharmacology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0033-3158Type
Journal article
Rights
© The Author(s) 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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