Abstract Despite its early promise as ‘the chemical key to schizophrenia’, and its manifest properties as a psychotomimetic, LSD failed to catch on as a drug model for human psychosis. The reasons for this and the longstanding preference, instead, for the amphetamine model are examined. It is argued that the rejection of LSD was not just a scientific decision, but was influenced by increasing...
Some of the difficulties of trying to establish an animal model of schizophrenia are first considered. Then, after a review of the evidence on the experimental psychopathology of schizophrenia, particularly that concerned with attention and arousal, it is concluded that the core feature which needs to be modeled in animals is some aspect of "input dysfunction." It is argued that, of the...