Chapter 4 of the document "Techniques in Behavioral Pharmacology" focuses on various methodologies utilized to evaluate animal behaviour in the context of behavioural pharmacology. The chapter emphasizes the importance of animal studies for understanding the neurochemical basis of behaviour and dev...
Techniques in Behavioral Pharmacology
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Evaluating animal behavior
- Behavioral pharmacology allows scientists to evaluate the relationship between experimental
manipulation and changes in behavior.
- Behavioral measures are crucial for understanding the neurochemical basis of behavior and
developing animal models of psychiatric disorders.
Animal testing needs to be valid and reliable to produce useful information
- Animal studies provide advantages over studies using human participants, including rigorous
controls and precise regulation of living conditions.
- Animal subjects are well-known and have similar genetic backgrounds, making them
appropriate for studying mechanisms of drug action and administering drugs in ways not
generally appropriate for humans.
- The brains and behaviors of non-human mammals and humans are similar enough for
generalization across species, allowing for testing of cognitive human behavior in animal-
speci c ways. The impact of animal testing in biomedical research on the quality of human life
is discussed in a thought-provoking manner by Hollinger (2008).
- Ethical constraints prohibit researchers from administering varying doses of alcohol to groups
of pregnant women to evaluate the e ects on their newborns, but animal experimentation is
still necessary in conditions where human participants are impossible. Animal testing remains
an important part of new drug development and evaluation, and strict animal care guidelines
have been developed to ensure proper treatment of subjects. The Health Research Extension
Act of 1985 provided guidelines for the care of animals used in biomedical and behavioral
research.
A wide variety of behaviors are evaluated by psychopharmacologists
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Simple Behavioral Observation
- Many untrained behaviors require little or no instrumentation.
- Catalepsy can be used as a test to identify antipsychotic drugs that produce motor side
e ects.
Measures of Motor Activity
- Measures identify drugs that produce sleep, sedation, or motor impairment and stimulate
activity.
- Spontaneous activity can be measured through various methods, including infrared light
beams, automated video tracking, and open eld tests.
Operant Conditioning
- Operant conditioning is a sensitive method used to evaluate the e ects of drugs on behavior
- Consequences control behavior, and animals learn to respond to obtain reinforcers and avoid
punishment
- Experiments are typically carried out in an operant chamber, which includes a soundproof
box, electric shock, food or water dispenser, and stimulus cue presentation
- Reinforcement requirements can be altered according to a predetermined schedule to
examine the e ect of a drug on behavior and learning
- Timing and interval schedules are commonly used to control the pattern and availability of
reinforcement
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- Computerized stimulus presentation and data collection provide a stable measure of
continuous behavior.
Measures of Analgesia
- Analgesia is the reduction of perceived pain without loss of consciousness
- Testing analgesia in humans is di cult due to di erences in response to experimentally
induced pain
- Animal tail- ick and hot plate tests can measure analgesic drug action using thermal stimuli
- Operant FR schedule utilizes negative reinforcement to increase the probability of a response
that terminates an aversive condition
- The method is sensitive to mild analgesics but requires an independent measure of sedation
to distinguish between analgesia and behavioral sedation.
Tests of Learning and Memory
- Objective measures of learning and memory are important for both animal and human
participants.
- Tests of learning are open to misinterpretation without considering other factors.
Mazes
- T-mazes involve multiple choice points leading to a nal goal box containing food or another
reinforcer
- Drug-induced changes in behavior may a ect learning or motivation, requiring careful
evaluation
- Radial arm maze helps investigate the role of speci c brain areas and neurotransmitters in
forming memories for relative locations
- Typical rats learn to forage e ciently by visiting each arm only once on a given day, indicating
e ective spatial memory
- Morris water maze is a laboratory technique that requires no extensive pretraining and can be
tested over short periods of time
- Successful escape from water requires learning the spatial position of the platform relative to
landmarks outside the pool
- Failure in this cognitive process is characteristic of patients with Alzheimer's disease who
wander away and fail to nd their way home.
Delayed-Response Test
- T-mazes involve multiple choice points leading to a nal goal box containing food or another
reinforcer
- Careful evaluation of results is needed to determine if drug-induced changes in behavior are
due to learning or motivation changes
- Spatial learning tasks help investigate the role of speci c brain areas and neurotransmitters in
forming memories for relative locations of objects in the environment
- Radial arm maze is a special type of maze where multiple arms radiate away from a central
choice point with food at the end of each arm
- Typical rats learn to forage e ciently by visiting each arm only once on a given day, indicating
e ective spatial memory
- Morris water maze uses a large circular pool of water to test spatial learning by navigating
from di erent starting positions to the hidden escape platform
- Successful escape requires learning the spatial position of the platform relative to landmarks
outside the pool
- Water immersion may cause endocrine or other stress e ects that can interact with cognitive
performance and drugs administered.
Measures of Anxiety-Like Behavior
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