Journal
CURRENT NEUROPHARMACOLOGY
Volume 13, Issue 2, Pages 164-179Publisher
BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBL LTD
DOI: 10.2174/1570159X13999150318113800
Keywords
Analgesic; antidepressant; anxiolytic; drug abuse; drug toxicity; psychostimulant
Categories
Funding
- Sardinian Regional Government
- Fondazione Banco di Sardegna [2013.1321, 2014.0395]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Several lines of evidence indicate that rats emit ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in response to a wide range of stimuli that are capable of producing either euphoric (positive) or dysphoric (negative) emotional states. On these bases, recordings of USVs are extensively used in preclinical studies of affect, motivation, and social behavior. Rat USVs are sensitive to the effects of certain classes of psychoactive drugs, suggesting that emission of rat USVs can have relevance not only to neurobiology, but also to neuropharmacology and psychopharmacology. This review summarizes three types of rat USVs, namely 40-kHz USVs emitted by pups, 22-kHz USVs and 50-kHz USVs emitted by young and adult animals, and relevance of these vocalizations to neuropharmacological studies. Attention will be focused on the issues of how rat USVs can be used to evaluate the pharmacological properties of different classes of drugs, and how rat USVs can be combined with other behavioral models used in neuropharmacology. The strengths and limitations of experimental paradigms based on the evaluation of rat USVs will also be discussed.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available