Mescaline treated rats attack immobile targets
Brooks Carder, Robert J. Sbordone
Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior September 1, 1975 DOI: 10.1016/0091-3057(75)90129-x (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Rats |
| Intervention | mescaline |
| Dose | 15 mg mescaline/kg, 50 mg/kg |
| Topics | Mescaline |
| Keywords | Biting Pharmacology Aggression Toxicology |
| Citations | 8 |
| Key findings | Mescaline at 50 mg/kg caused rats to attack immobile targets most vigorously, while controls only attacked moving targets, suggesting a release of aggressive behavior from inhibitory control. |
Abstract
Rats were exposed to a series of targets in a shock induced aggression situation. Control rats fought most with moving targets, such as another normal rat, and did not attack immobile targets, such as a dead rat or a rat model. Rats treated with 15 mg mescaline/kg showed a similar pattern of target control though they bit frequently while controls did not bite. Rats treated with 50 mg/kg delivered vigorous biting attacks to a variety of targets but fought most with the immobile dead rat. They failed to attack only the rat model. Much of the data were consistent with the hypothesis that mescaline releases aggressive behavior from inhibitory control, leading to longer and more vigorous attacks on a wider variety of targets. This hypothesis, however, failed to explain why stationary targets were more effective for animals treated with 50 mg mescaline/kg while only moving targets were effective for controls.
Comparable studies
Other preclinical and animal studies on mescaline, most cited first.
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| Brain mechanisms of hallucinogens and entactogens Humans and rats | 2001 | Review | |
| Effects of hallucinogenic agents mescaline and phencyclidine on zebrafish behavior and physiology Zebrafish (Danio rerio) | 2012 | Experimental study | |
| Lysergic Acid Diethylamide- and Mescaline-Induced Attenuation of the Effect of Punishment in the Rat Rats | 1976 | Experimental study | |
| Dihydrobenzofuran Analogues of Hallucinogens. 3. Models of 4-Substituted (2,5-Dimethoxyphenyl)alkylamine Derivatives with Rigidified Methoxy Groups Rats (trained to discriminate saline from LSD tartrate) and rat cortical and... | 1996 | In vivo drug discrimination assay and in vitro radioligand binding assay |