A set of behavioural tests predicting antidepressant activity

Psychotropic drugs from various classes were tested in a set of behavioural test models for antidepressant activity in order to establish the validity of these models for predicting such activity. The drugs included six recently developed antidepressants with proven clinical effectiveness, namely zimelidine, viloxazine, ciclazindol, amoxapine, bupropion, and trazodone. They were tested in the following models: The muricide rat model (with a measure of specificity provided by the shuttle-box test); the acquired immobility (behavioural despair) test with mice; potentiation of amphetamine-induced exploratory behaviour of rats; and potentiation of yohimbine lethality in mice. None of the models is in itself sufficient to predict antidepressant activity in the compounds tested. A combination of the muricidal rat/shuttle-box paradigm and the acquired immobility test with mice would detect all known antidepressant compounds. This combination can be used to detect compounds comparable to those antidepressants possessing clinically established antidepressant activity.