An anxiolytic is a medication, or other intervention, that reduces anxiety. This effect is in contrast to anxiogenic agents, which increase anxiety. Together these categories of psychoactive compounds or interventions may be referred to as anxiotropic compounds or agents. Some recreational drugs such as alcohol induce anxiolysis initially; however, studies show that many of these drugs are anxiogenic. Anxiolytic medications have been used for the treatment of anxiety disorder and its related psychological and physical symptoms. Light therapy and other interventions have also been found to have an anxiolytic effect.
Operant conditioning is a type of associative learning process through which the strength of a behavior is modified by reinforcement or punishment. It is also a procedure that is used to bring about such learning.
An operant conditioning chamber is a laboratory apparatus used to study animal behavior. The operant conditioning chamber was created by B. F. Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. It may have been inspired by Jerzy Konorski's studies. It is used to study both operant conditioning and classical conditioning.
The experimental analysis of behavior is school of thought in psychology founded on B. F. Skinner's philosophy of radical behaviorism and defines the basic principles used in applied behavior analysis. A central principle was the inductive reasoning data-driven examination of functional relations, as opposed to the kinds of hypothetico-deductive learning theory that had grown up in the comparative psychology of the 1920–1950 period. Skinner's approach was characterized by observation of measurable behavior which could be predicted and controlled. It owed its early success to the effectiveness of Skinner's procedures of operant conditioning, both in the laboratory and in behavior therapy.
Animal euthanasia is the act of putting an animal to death or allowing it to die by withholding extreme medical measures. Reasons for euthanasia include incurable conditions or diseases, lack of resources to continue supporting the animal, or laboratory test procedures. Euthanasia methods are designed to cause minimal pain and distress. Euthanasia is distinct from animal slaughter and pest control although in some cases the procedure is the same.
Phenylpiracetam, is a phenylated analog of the drug piracetam. It was developed in 1983 as a medication for Soviet Cosmonauts to treat the prolonged stresses of working in space. Phenylpiracetam was created at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Biomedical Problems in an effort led by psychopharmacologist Valentina Ivanovna Akhapkina. In Russia it is now available as a prescription drug. Research on animals has indicated that phenylpiracetam may have anti-amnesic, antidepressant, anticonvulsant, anxiolytic, and memory enhancement effects.
Extinction is a behavioral phenomenon observed in both operantly conditioned and classically conditioned behavior, which manifests itself by fading of non-reinforced conditioned response over time. When operant behavior that has been previously reinforced no longer produces reinforcing consequences the behavior gradually stops occurring. In classical conditioning, when a conditioned stimulus is presented alone, so that it no longer predicts the coming of the unconditioned stimulus, conditioned responding gradually stops. For example, after Pavlov's dog was conditioned to salivate at the sound of a metronome, it eventually stopped salivating to the metronome after the metronome had been sounded repeatedly but no food came. Many anxiety disorders such as post traumatic stress disorder are believed to reflect, at least in part, a failure to extinguish conditioned fear.
Brain stimulation reward (BSR) is a pleasurable phenomenon elicited via direct stimulation of specific brain regions, originally discovered by James Olds and Peter Milner. BSR can serve as a robust operant reinforcer. Targeted stimulation activates the reward system circuitry and establishes response habits similar to those established by natural rewards, such as food and sex. Experiments on BSR soon demonstrated that stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus, along with other regions of the brain associated with natural reward, was both rewarding as well as motivation-inducing. Electrical brain stimulation and intracranial drug injections produce robust reward sensation due to a relatively direct activation of the reward circuitry. This activation is considered to be more direct than rewards produced by natural stimuli, as those signals generally travel through the more indirect peripheral nerves. BSR has been found in all vertebrates tested, including humans, and it has provided a useful tool for understanding how natural rewards are processed by specific brain regions and circuits, as well the neurotransmission associated with the reward system.
Joseph Vincent Brady was an American psychologist, neuroscientist, and pioneer of behavioral pharmacology. In addition to his status as a founder of behavioral pharmacology, he made significant contributions in the areas of drug abuse and treatment, space exploration, and human research ethics.
Benzoctamine is a drug that possesses sedative and anxiolytic properties. Marketed as Tacitin by Ciba-Geigy, it is different from most sedative drugs because in most clinical trials it does not produce respiratory depression, but actually stimulates the respiratory system. As a result, when compared to other sedative and anxiolytic drugs such as benzodiazepines like diazepam, it is a safer form of tranquilizing. However, when co-administered with other drugs that cause respiratory depression, like morphine, it can cause increased respiratory depression.
L-838,417 is an anxiolytic drug used in scientific research. It has similar effects to benzodiazepine drugs, but is structurally distinct and so is classed as a nonbenzodiazepine anxiolytic. The compound was developed by Merck, Sharp and Dohme.
The elevated plus maze (EPM) is a test measuring anxiety in laboratory animals that usually uses rodents as a screening test for putative anxiolytic or anxiogenic compounds and as a general research tool in neurobiological anxiety research such as PTSD and TBI. The model is based on the test animal's aversion to open spaces and tendency to be thigmotaxic. In the EPM, this anxiety is expressed by the animal spending more time in the enclosed arms.
Deramciclane (EGIS-3886) is a non-benzodiazepine-type anxiolytic drug to treat various types of anxiety disorders. Deramciclane is a unique alternative to current anxiolytics on the market because it has a novel chemical structure and target. It acts as an antagonist at the 5-HT2A receptor, as an inverse agonist at the 5-HT2C receptor, and as a GABA reuptake inhibitor. The two serotonin receptors are G protein-coupled receptors and are two of the main excitatory serotonin receptor types. Their excitation has been implicated in anxiety and mood. Deramciclane does not affect CYP3A4 activity in metabolizing other drugs, but it is a weak inhibitor of CYP2D6. Some studies also show the drug to have moderate affinity to dopamine D2 receptors and low affinity to dopamine receptor D1. Researchers are looking for alternatives to benzodiazepines for anxiolytic use because benzodiazepine drugs have sedative and muscle relaxant side effects.
Conditioned place preference (CPP) is a form of Pavlovian conditioning used to measure the motivational effects of objects or experiences. By measuring the amount of time an animal spends in an area that has been associated with a stimulus, researchers can infer the animal's liking for the stimulus. This paradigm can also be used to measure conditioned place aversion with an identical procedure involving aversive stimuli instead. Both procedures usually involve mice or rats as subjects. This procedure can be used to measure extinction and reinstatement of the conditioned stimulus. Certain drugs are used in this paradigm to measure their reinforcing properties. Two different methods are used to choose the compartments to be conditioned, and these are biased vs. unbiased. The biased method allows the animal to explore the apparatus, and the compartment they least prefer is the one that the drug is administered in and the one they most prefer is the one where the vehicle is injected. This method allows the animal to choose the compartment they get the drug and vehicle in. In comparison, the unbiased method does not allow the animal to choose what compartment they get the drug and vehicle in and instead the researcher chooses the compartments.
Self-administration is, in its medical sense, the process of a subject administering a pharmacological substance to themself. A clinical example of this is the subcutaneous "self-injection" of insulin by a diabetic patient.
The conflict procedure is an experiment often used in scientific research to quantify anxiety levels by measuring changes in punished/unpunished responses. It is often used to screen drugs for their potential to inhibit anxiety.
Animal models of depression are research tools used to investigate depression and action of antidepressants as a simulation to investigate the symptomatology and pathophysiology of depressive illness or used to screen novel antidepressants.
The hole-board test (HBT) is an experimental method used in scientific research to measure anxiety, stress, neophilia and emotionality in animals. Because of its ability to measure multiple behaviors it is a popular test in behavioral pharmacology, but the results are controversial.
Marble burying is an animal model used in scientific research to depict anxiety or obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) behavior. It is based on the observation that rats and mice will bury either harmful or harmless objects in their bedding. While widely used there is significant controversy over the interpretation of its results.
The light-dark box test (LDB) is a popular animal model used in pharmacology to assay unconditioned anxiety responses in rodents. The extent to which behavior in the LDB measures anxiety is controversial.
