A PSYCHO-PHARMACOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOUR IN RATS
B.d. Gupta, P.c. Dandiya, Mahima Gupta
The Japanese Journal of Pharmacology January 1, 1971 DOI: 10.1254/jjp.21.293 via OpenAlex
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractThe Open Field Test measures three distinct behaviors—emotional freezing and defecation (driven by autonomic nervous system reactivity), rearing (driven by cortical excitation), and stereotyped ambulation (driven by corpus striatum activity)—each affected differently by drugs. Autonomic depressants reduce freezing; cortical excitants increase rearing; hallucinatory drugs increase ambulation. LSD and iproniazid selectively stimulate ambulation while suppressing rearing and preening. Amphetamine increases rearing while blocking preening and ambulation. Imipramine inhibits preening without affecting ambulation or rearing. This study extends the approach to methyl phenidate, pentylene tetrazol, mescaline, caffeine, and pargyline to draw conclusions about pharmacological manipulation of Open Field performance.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Rats |
| Interventions | methyl phenidate pentylene tetrazol mescaline caffeine pargyline |
| Topics | Mescaline |
| Keywords | Open field Stimulant Amphetamine Psychology Imipramine |
| Citations | 78 |
| Key finding | Different stimulant drugs produce distinct patterns of behavior in the Open Field Test, with LSD and iproniazid selectively increasing stereotyped ambulation, amphetamine increasing rearing while blocking ambulation and preening, and imipramine inhibiting preening alone. |
Abstract
The Open Field Test situation is reported to produce autonomic nervous system reactivity determined emotional freezing and defecation (1, 2), cortical excitation determined rearing activity (3), and corpus striatum activity determined stereotyped ambulation (4, 5). Thus autonomic depressant drugs reduce emotional freezing (6), cortical excitant drugs augment rearing (7, 8), and hallucinatory drugs facilitate stereotyped ambulation (4). It has been reported (3) that selective stimulation of stereotyped ambulation with suppression of interrupting responses of rearing or preening is a typical action of increasing doses of LSD or iproniazid. This typical drug effect can be differentiated from that of amphetamine which in increasing doses facilitates rearing and simultaneously blocks preening as well as stereotyped ambulation; a third type of drug effect being that of imipramine which in increasing doses inhibits preening but failing to modify ambulation or rearing in rats. In the present study, attempts have been made to extend this approach to other stimulant drugs, i.e. methyl phenidate, pentylene tetrazol, mescaline, caffeine and pargyline for arriving at some definite conclusions regarding the multidimensional Open Field performance and the pharmacological manipulation there of.