Tranquilizer action on thalamic and midbrain escape behavior

¹ Department of Psychology, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Drug tests were made on a behavior pattern which alternated between escape from midbrain stimulation and escape from thalamic stimulation. As the behavior and testing procedures were the same, and as the alternated tests were made intercurrently during the same drug session, the differences in effect depended entirely on the differences between the two points of stimulation. The mesencephalically stimulated escape behavior was regularly far more vulnerable to both chlorpromazine and meprobamate than the thalamically stimulated escape behavior.

Key Words: brain stimulation • chlorpromazine • meprobamate • brain behavior • self-stimulation

Submitted on July 10, 1963