Comparison of anti-conflict drug effects in three experimental animal models of anxiety.

A novel form of experimentally-induced conflict behavior based on the conditioned suppression of drinking (CSD) is described and compared with two conventional animal models of human anxiety--a modified Geller-Seifter and an Estes-Skinner (Conditioned Emotional Response) procedure. The CSD procedure offered significant advantages over the two operant procedures in that the session duration was short (10 min) and the acquisition of stable behavioral baselines was rapid (approximately 2 weeks). Like the more conventional procedures, the CSD paradigm permitted the simultaneous determination of drug effects on shock-suppressed and nonsuppressed responding as estimates of antianxiety and sedative properties, respectively. With the CSD procedure, the anticonflict profiles for the benzodiazepines were highly correlated with their relative clinical antianxiety potency. Therefore, the CSD procedure appears to be a valuable tool in screening for possible antianxiety agents as well as in the behavioral testing of mechanism of action hypotheses regarding such agents.