Ethanol and pentobarbital have different behavioral effects in the rat.
Stimulus control was established in rats with 600 mg/kg ethanol and saline by employing a two-lever response choice task and an FR10 schedule of food reinforcement. Once trained, rats were tested with lower doses of ethanol (300 and 450 mg/kg) and with pentobarbital (0.75 - 4.0 mg/kg). The 3.0 and 4.0 mg/kg doses of pentobarbital were observed to produce ethanol-like responding and decreasing doses of both ethanol and pentobarbital produced dose-related effects upon discriminative performance. The ED50 for ethanol was 372 mg/kg and for pentobarbital was 1.09 mg/kg. Graphic representation of the dose-response relationships suggested that these drugs possess different sites and/or mechanisms of action.
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects*; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000187:drug effects; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000187:drug effects*; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D000431:Ethanol / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008297:Male; D010424:Pentobarbital / Q000494:pharmacology*; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains
D000431:Ethanol; D010424:Pentobarbital