Methods in Behavioral Pharmacology is unique in offering a complete description and critical evaluation of most, if not all, methods available to study the effects of drugs on behavior. It stands apart in that it is not limited to the analysis of a particular class of pharmacological agents in a limited number of paradigms. Methods in Behavioral Pharmacology covers all paradigms without reference to specific pharmacological compounds. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the methodology used to study the behavioral effects of legal and illegal drugs. It also provides an in-depth presentation of dependent variables, their quantification and a critical evaluation of their advantages and disadvantages. An excellent work, contributed to by well-known experts in the different fields of behavioral pharmacology.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of substances that are used to modify behavior. While different classes of substances have known effects, one has only to see a group of people drinking to excess to recognize that not everyone responds in the same way to a given substance. Why do substances have the behavioral effects they do, and why do individuals vary in their responses to them? This book provides a conceptual framework for answering such questions. Introduction to Behavioral Pharmacology includes a short overview of behavioral analysis and general pharmacology, followed by detailed discussion of assessment of drug effects, the stimulus properties of drugs, drug abuse, and more.

First published in 1986. This monograph is based on a conference sponsored by the Human Learning and Behavior Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH. The meeting that was held at the Xerox Center in Leesburg, Virginia, in August 1983, brought together a group of leading researchers for the purpose of providing an overview of the emerging field of developmental behavioral pharmacology. More specifically, as is evidenced by the chapters in this volume, the intent was to put the field into historical perspective, render a working definition, and outline strategies and tactics for conducting behavioral pharmacological research in the developing organism.

vii Drugs and sex are two topics about which most people have strong opinions and weak understanding. Knowledge of each can be gained in many ways, all with associated rewards and risks. Like all textbooks, this one was written in the belief that reading can foster learning. The book is intended to introduce principles of behavioral pharmacology to readers with little or no knowledge of the discipline but with an interest in how drugs affect human behavior. Gleaning anything of value from the text requires two things from the reader. The first is a willingness to accept an analysis of drug effects that shares little with folklore or common sense no tions of drug action. The second is a willingness to accept the fact that the behavioral effects of drugs are complex and depend upon a sizable number of pharmacological and behavioral variables. Unless one is aware of these factors and how they determine a drug's actions, the behavioral effects of drugs can be neither pre dicted nor meaningfully explained. If it does nothing else, this volume will make it obvious that the behavioral effects of drugs are lawful and can be predicted and understood on the basis of well-established relations between empirical phenomena. De scribing these relations and exploring how they allow behavioral ix x PREFACE pharmacologists to make sense of drug effects that are otherwise incomprehensible was a major goal in preparing the text.

First published in 1987. Advances in Behavioral Pharmacology has broadened its scope in an attempt to provide a better understanding of behavioral actions of drugs and their applied implications. Each volume will be increasingly thematic and successive volumes will cover a wider range of issues. Some publications in this series, such as the present volume 6, Neurobehavioral Pharmacology, will primarily explore relations between neurochemistry and related areas of neurobiology and behavioral pharmacology.

Advances in Behavioral Pharmacology, Volume 2 covers papers on the evidence of the broadening scope and the practical implications of behavioral pharmacology. The book presents papers about some quantitative behavioral pharmacology in the mouse; about interrelations among prior experience; and current conditions in the determination of behavior and the effects of drugs. The text also describes the effects of drugs on male sexual function; agonistic behavior and repeated acquisition; as well as the procedures and results of drug self-administration research in laboratory animals that provide information about the abuse liability of drugs in man. Procedures for reducing drug intake in nonhumans are also considered. Behavioral pharmacologists, pharmacologists, and students taking behavioral pharmacology will find the book useful.

First Published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.