Pharmacological Evaluation of Potential Animal Modelsh for the Study of Antipanic and Panicogenic Treatment Effects

The present chapter reviews the effects of antipanic and panicogenic treatments in several animal models of anxiety, all of which have exhibited some degree of predictive validity based on positive effects following acute administration of benzodiazepine and barbiturate anxiolytic agents. In several animal models for anxiety (social interaction, elevated plus maze, and potentiated startle), three weeks of repeated daily treatment with tricyclic (TCA) or monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) antidepressants failed to exert anxiolytic-like effects. Moreover, only modest anxiolytic-like effects have been observed in the novelty-suppressed feeding (NS) and conditioned suppression of drinking (CSD) conflict tasks following three weeks of treatment with TCAs. However, when chronic treatment was extended to five weeks or longer, robust and significant anxiolytic-like effects were observed in the CSD paradigm following chronic treatment with several TCAs and nonselective MAOIs. Furthermore, the efficacy of atypical antidepressants and other agents to increase punished responding when administered chronically was correlated with the efficacy of these agents in the clinical management of panic disorder. Long-term chronic treatment (5–12 wk) with TCAs or MAOIs, however, did not alter defensive burying behavior.