D. Treit et al., NONINTERACTIVE EFFECTS OF DIAZEPAM AND AMYGDALOID-LESIONS IN 2 ANIMAL-MODELS OF ANXIETY, Behavioral neuroscience, 107(6), 1993, pp. 1099-1105
The role of the amygdala in mediating the anxiolytic effects of diazep
am was examined in two models of rat anxiety. As in our previous exper
iments, amygdaloid lesions by themselves did not increase rats' explor
ation of the open arms of the elevated plus-maze or decrease rats' bur
ying of an electrified probe in the shock-probe burying test. However,
amygdaloid lesions did increase rats' shock-probe contacts. Diazepam
(2 mg/kg) increased open-arm activity and decreased burying behavior t
o an equal extent in sham-lesioned and amygdala-lesioned rats and had
no significant effect on the facilitation of probe contacts induced by
amygdaloid lesions. These results suggest that many of the anxiolytic
effects of benzodiazepines are not mediated by the amygdala.