Effects of piracetam on learned helplessness in rats.

In rats, the effects of Piracetam (P), the prototype of nootropic drugs, were studied on a very widely used model of behavioral disturbance: the learned helplessness (LH) phenomenon. In this model, exposure to uncontrollable and unsignalled shocks impairs subsequent escape-avoidance learning. In a first experiment, this deficit was abolished by 200 mg/kg of P, and to a lesser extent, by a 100 mg/kg dose, administered before the training session. In non-stressed animals, no dose of P was able to have a facilitatory effect on escape-avoidance. In a second experiment, the administration of P, not before the training session as in Experiment I, but before the stress, had no effect on the LH phenomenon regardless of the dose.