Methods of deconditioning persisting avoidance: Drugs as adjuncts to response prevention

Abstract

Rats were trained, across 3 daily sessions, to avoid intense footshock in an automated one-way avoidance box. Subsequent to training and termination of footshock, groups of rats received different treatments, and all were tested for persistence of avoidance 3 days later. One group’s treatment was only handling, a no-treatment group. All other groups were given response prevention, i.e., 10 min on the previously shocking grid without the opportunity to avoid. Groups of rats experienced response prevention under the influence of saline or doses of drugs: meprobamate, meprobamate in conjunction with atropine, atropine alone, atropine methyl nitrate, physostigmine, ethanol, morphine sulfate, amphetamine, chlordiazepoxide, and chlorpromazine. Only atropine led to reliably less persisting avoidance than response prevention controls, whereas doses of chlordiazepoxide led to more persisting avoidance. These data provide little support for the idea that widely used “psychotropic” drugs are effective in aiding the reduction of anxiety-fear-avoidance when postdrug behavior is the criterion for a drug’s effectiveness. © 1977, Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.