ABSTRACT
Drug discrimination has been used to study the behavioural effects produced by selecticve 5–hydroxytryptamine (5–HT) agonists because they produce distinct stimulus properties (see Glennon & Lucki, 1988). Rats trained to discriminate the stimulus properties of the 5–HT1A agonist 8–hydroxy–2–(di–n–propylamino) tetralin (8–OH–DPAT) respond similarly when they are administered other drugs that are selective for the 5–HT1A receptor, such as buspirone or ipsapirone (Glennon, 1986; Cunningham et al., 1987; Tricklebank et al., 1987). Drugs selective for other 5–HT receptor subtypes do not generalize to this cue. Since drugs like buspirone are used to treat anxiety disorders in humans (Goldberg & Finnerty, 1979) and cause behavioural effects in animals typical of antianxiety agents (Eison et al., 1986), the stimulus properties of 5–HT1A agonists may provide a model for studying similar anxiolytic drugs.
