The diazepam stimulus complex: specificity in a rat model.

Rats were trained to discriminate between one dose of diazepam (2.0 mg/kg) and saline in a two-lever operant chamber. When the group (n = 7) reached the training criterion, other drugs were introduced to test. Test drugs with supposed agonistic effects included drugs sharing one or more effects with diazepam, while drugs with supposed antagonistic effects were selected in relation to both reported effects and a supposed neurochemical substrate for the diazepam discriminative stimulus complex (DSC). It is concluded that a discriminative stimulus complex induced by a low dose of diazepam is highly specific and dependent on specific elements in the training procedure as well as in the testing procedure.