Sections
Animal Models: Introduction | Model Types and Validity | Learned Helplessness | Chronic Stress | Social Loss | Physiological Manipulations | Early Life Stress | Genetic Manipulations | Utility and Limitations | References
Excerpt
Practical limitations and ethical concerns restrict
opportunities for randomized, controlled trials of potentially new
drug treatments for human psychiatric disorders. Prospects for discovering
the neural mechanisms of action of established therapeutic drugs
are also less prevalent in psychiatry than other fields of medicine,
because biopsies of diseased brain tissue in humans are seldom performed. Animal
models are therefore essential for screening new drugs and for understanding
how drug therapies in humans restore the neural basis of mental
health. This chapter addresses the validity, utility, and limitations
of animal models in psychopharmacological research.