Abstract
Experiments on rats show that the effect of haloperidol upon central nervous system activity is abolished or inhibited by pregnenolone-16α-carbonitrile (PCN), “Catatoxic Steroid Number 1” (CS-1), ethylestrenol, spironolactone, norbolethone, oxandrolone, prednisolone and, to a lesser extent, by progesterone. On the other hand, triamcinolone and thyroxine actually increase the sensitivity of the rat to haloperidol so that normally well-tolerated doses induce a high mortality.
Since the protective effect of the above-mentioned steroids against most toxicants is ascribed to hepatic microsomal enzyme induction, it is of special interest that phenobarbital—one of the most potent nonsteroidal hepatic microsomal enzyme inducers—fails to protect the rat against haloperidol.
These findings confirm earlier observations which showed that there are great qualitative differences between the protective effects of various enzyme inducers upon diverse substrates.
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Selye, H., Szabo, S. Protection against haloperidol by catatoxic steroids. Psychopharmacologia 24, 430–434 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00402537
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00402537