Quantitative perspectives on behavioral toxicology.
Behavioral endpoints offer special challenges to toxicology. One arises from the sometimes conflicting ways in which adverse effects may be expressed. For example, both increases and decreases in response rates of schedule-controlled performance may be produced by a specific agent, depending on the specific schedule. Interpretations of such an outcome depend upon a close analysis of the experimental circumstances and the behavioral findings. Another arises from the many disparate variables that can influence a particular outcome. Accurate measures of sensory thresholds, for instance, depend upon precise means for delivering stimuli and upon appropriate psychophysical procedures. Such examples emphasize that quantification in behavioral toxicology is more than a matter of attaching numbers to some arbitrarily selected measure. Instead, meaningful quantification first requires that the investigator understand in principle the sources of the measures to which the numbers are being attached. This is especially critical when the measures are being used not for the relatively straightforward purpose of hazard identification, but for the more subtle aim of risk assessment and dose-response (effect) extrapolation. For these aims, behavioral microanalyses, based on the coordination of multiple measures in individual subjects, usually provide the most robust guides.
Weiss
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Department of Biophysics, University of Rochester Medical Centre, NY 14642.
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects*; D011930:Reaction Time; D014116:Toxicology / Q000379:methods*