Effects of chlorpromazine on continuous avoidance behavior in mice.

Previous reports have indicated that self-trained appetitive operant schedules of reinforcement can be acquired readily by mice using an apparatus which detects head movement responses. Using a similar apparatus, suitably modified, the utility of this methodology has been extended to an operant schedule of reinforcement in which behavior is maintained by an aversive shock stimulus. As previously demonstrated with various other CNS active drugs in the appetitive mouse procedures, the effects of chlorpromazine in the mouse continuous avoidance procedure described here were similar to those obtained in analogous standard rat procedures. These results increase the opportunities for experimenters to avail themselves of the advantages offered by the use of mice, rather than rats, in operant behavioral pharmacology.