Summary
Data were collected on the effects of pipradrol hydrochloride and sodium amylobarbitone on operant responding by rats in a discrimination situation.
It was found that pipradrol caused a marked increase in the animals' general excitement and interfered with eating behaviour, especially in the 10 mg/kg dose. It also greatly increased the variability of response rates. In the 10 mg/kg dose pipradrol tended to abolish bar-pressing behaviour, but this effect did not appear until two or three days' testing under this drug had taken place. In the 5 mg/kg dose pipradrol greatly increased response rates. In both doses it drastically reduced the subjects' ability to discriminate SD from SΔ. Amylobarbitone had much less marked effects than pipradrol, but what effects it did have tended to be in the same direction as those produced by this drug. Thus, it tended to increase response rates and decrease the discrimination ratio. Changes in the drug effects as a function of day of testing and drive level are also decribed.
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This research was supported by grants from the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals' Research Fund and the Wellcome Trust. I am very grateful to Mr. H. Hurwitz for his generous provision of facilities in the Animal Behaviour Laboratory at Birkbeck College, as well as for his many helpful suggestions, and to Dr. P. L. Broadhurst for his supervision, advice and criticism. Dr. D. Joyce gave me valuable advice on the doses and timing of the drug administrations. I also wish to thank Mr. A. Hendrickson for his help with the computer programming of the statistical analyses and Miss N. Hemsley and Mrs. V. Beevers for other help with the computations.
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Gray, J.A. The effects of pipradrol hydrochloride and sodium amylobarbitone on operant responding in a discrimination situation. Psychopharmacologia 6, 417–434 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00429569
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00429569