The scototaxis test has been introduced recently to assess anxiety-like phenotypes in fish, including zebrafish. Parametric analyses suggest that scototaxis represents an approach-avoidance conflict, which hints at anxiety. In this model, white avoidance represents anxiety-like behavior, while the number of shuttling events represents activity. Acute or chronic fluoxetine, buspirone, benzodiaze...

Besides the important role of emotional factors in the production of psychological-stress-induced analgesia (PSY-SIA), recent attention to the participation of serotonergic (5-HTnergic) neurons in the fear- and anxiety-evoking mechanism led us to examine the effects of 5-HTnergic ligands on PSY-SIA. Pretreatment of mice with 2.0 to 10 mg/kg of methysergide, a 5-HT receptor antagonist, or 1.0 to...

Several animal models of "depression" have been examined. One of them is chronic unpredictable stress (CUS)-induced deficit of fighting behavior in rats. In the present study, we compared the effects of two antidepressants (fluoxetine or fluvoxamine) and three anxiolytics (buspirone, lorazepam or oxazepam) on the electric footshock-induced fighting behavior in the pairs of male Wistar rats expo...

The effect of fluvoxamine, a selective serotonin (5-HT) reuptake inhibitor, was studied in a model of anxiety and/or obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in mice. In the anxiety/OCD model, marble-burying behavior, marble-burying was significantly suppressed by fluvoxamine at 30 and 60 mg/kg, p.o. and the monoamine reuptake inhibitor clomipramine, at 60 mg/kg, p.o. No suppressive effect, however,...

The majority of depressed patients do not experience sufficient response to their initial antidepressant medication. Augmentation strategies, particularly the use of atypical antipsychotics to augment selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), have proliferated over the last 15 years, and 2 atypical antipsychotics, aripiprazole and quetiapine, have received US Food and Drug Administration...

Sleep bruxism is characterized by the involuntary clenching or grinding of the teeth during sleep and can cause severe health problems, including the destruction of tooth structure, temporo-mandibular joint dysfunction, myofascial pain, and severe sleep disturbances (1). Iatrogenic sleep bruxism may be common during treatment with pyschotropic medications, such as antipsychotics and antidepress...