Classical conditioning of the immune system using mitoxantrone

Mitoxantrone (MX) is a cytostatic drug that is used in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) as an escalation therapy when other immunomodulatory treatment options have failed. Treatment with MX can lead to a number of side effects, but especially the cardiotoxicity of MX requires careful monitoring and limits the treatment duration. Animal and human studies have demonstrated that after classical conditioning procedures using an immunmodulatory drug (e.g. cyclosporine A) as the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) paired with a novel, salient taste (e.g. saccharine) as the conditioned stimulus (CS), re-presentation o…