Adaptation of a primate operant test battery to the rat: effects of chlorpromazine

The National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) Operant Test Battery (OTB) has been used extensively in rhesus monkeys to characterize the effec ts of drugs and toxicants on the performance of tasks designed to model sev eral cognitive functions. Recently, the majority of the OTB tasks have been adapted for use in rats. The current study is the first to examine the eff ects of a prototypic pharmacological agent previously assessed in monkeys o n rat OTB performance. The effects of the dopamine antagonist chlorpromazin e (0.56-5.6 mg/kg, i.p.) were assessed in rats performing tasks designed to model auditory-visual-position discrimination, learning, time estimation, and appetitive motivation. All four tasks were equally sensitive to the beh avioral effects of chlorpromazine. This pattern of sensitivity was very sim ilar to that obtained when chlorpromazine was tested in monkeys performing the OTB. These data thus suggest that operant tasks designed to model cogni tive functions in monkeys can also be used in rats, and that the effects of chlorpromazine on the performance of these tasks may be predictive of resu lts obtained with monkeys. Further characterization of the rat OTB using pr ototypic pharmacological agents will further determine the extent to which drug effects on rat OTB performance can be generalized to primates. Publish ed by Elsevier Science Inc.