Drug Effects on Social Behavior: Methods in Ethopharmacology

Animals (including human beings) show complex interactions with their own species, other species, and the environment. An encounter between two animals such as that of rodent aggression (described by Grant and Mackintosh, 1963) 27 involves intricate behavioral patterns, presumably expressing a variety of motivations. Over the past 20 years encounters between rats or mice staged by investigators within the laboratory have been advocated for the evaluation of behavioral effects of drug actions upon the central nervous system (CNS). The utilization of detailed ethological studies of diverse species-specific activities seems to have distinct advantages over the analysis of single behavioral parameters since they may facilitate:

(1)	Distinguishing between specific and nonspecific drug effects. For example, low doses of benzodiazepines have a specific anxiolytic action, whereas high doses are generally depressant. The specificity of drug action can also be assessed by examining the complete behavioral profile
(2)	Comparisons between drugs, which have the same effect on a single measure